Luvamama.com: a mom story

I have wanted to see the movie “Julie and Julia” since it opened in theaters but I haven’t had a chance.  Mostly because of the babysitter situation.  Some folks have polluted the teenage girl pool with wads of cash so that the rest of us have to take out a second mortgage just to leave our house alone. I still can’t believe that paying a 14 year old $10/hour has become commonplace.  I’m actually nervous when rate negotiations begin because I don’t want to be regarded as the cheap family when really we are the – uh……..cheap family.  Positive spin – frugal.

Back to “Julie and Julia” – I consider this movie to be my “research” as this is my first blog and this book has something to do with blogging, “finding ones self” and a one year time line.  Sound familiar?  So in the interest of research and the fact that I’m avoiding my storage closet like the plague, I decided to pick up the book.  I love it!  I may even be inspired to graduate from spagetti and  grilled steak to Potage Parmentier (Potato soup in case you were wondering).  I was giddy with excitement when on page 41, Julie also started preparing to move.  Can’t wait to find out how that goes while trying to juggle everything else.  I feel like the planets are aligning or something.

Wait, If you’ve read the book, please don’t tell me she dies in the end!

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Yay me!  I lost one pound.  the slower it comes off the better right?  I managed to exercise 3 times but I have also missed two of the predetermined Wii exercise days.  But I have a great excuse, we bought a new house!

Funny story, I was just telling my husband that I was going to start cleaning out the dreaded storage room.  The storage room is the bane of my existence.   This brings me to the Soul portion of my goals.  I feel like the little jobs in my life are holding me back from accomplishing anything.  You know -  laundry, unfinished (or not started) scrapbooks, cluttered closets, and flowerbeds.  this stuff is always in the back of my head and I feel like I can’t start anything else until I check these things off my “to do” list. I think I can cleanse my soul if I can clear my chores.

I’m one of those people who looks like they keep a tidy house, but everything is stuffed into the storage room, so much so that lately, I’m having trouble opening the door to get anything out of the freezer.  The most irritating part is that I often clean it out (at least 4 times a year), but almost as soon as I complete the task, someone will kindly give me a load of kids clothes, then I’ll hit Costco, then I’ll be in a rush while searching for a particular pair of rubber boots, and my house of cards will tumble to the ground.

So the upside to buying a new house is that I have no choice.  Do or die!  I’m going to clean sweep my little heart out.  All my acquaintances are going to find bags of stuff I can’t bear to throw out on their door steps (so they can throw it out on my behalf).  This is it, a new CLEAN start (you may not hear from me for a few months).

PS. Is it just me or is it that every time you think your life is getting more manageable, you decide to throw in another life-altering experience.  Like moving with three small children in the dead of winter for example.

My 6 year old is an extremely sensitive person, so much so that a sentimental commercial will often result in an afternoon of sobs and I dare not bring “Charlottes Web” into the house.  However, it comes naturally, we watched “Black Beauty” on three separate occasions and every time her and I see Ginger getting carted off, we each have a big snorty crying fit.

We don’t own any pets and I often tell my girls that their little brother is like a pet, we have to feed him, give him fresh water and clean up his poop.  I’ve told them on many occasions that I am at my responsibility limit and as soon as they are all able to shoulder some of said responsibility, we will think about getting a pet.

So it comes to no surprise that my girls are fascinated with their Nintendo DS Petz game “My Puppy Family”.  The game entails going to the adoption center, choosing puppies and if you look after the pups well, they grow up, fall in love, and if your dogs are of opposite gender, they will reproduce.  My daughter had a boy named Jumper, a girl named Kate, and lo and behold, they had a male pup named Cutie.

As 6 year olds often do, my daughter wanted to change things up so she sent Jumper to the adoption center in exchange for a Chihuahua.  She excitedly told me about the switch as I was doing laundry and I made some flippant remark like, “You just gave Cutie’s Daddy away, poor Cutie.”  And then I went back to chores.  An hour later I hear these loud, snotty sobs emanating from the basement, I ran down and she threw herself into my arms.  It took a good 5 minutes to figure out what she was crying about and I made out the words, “I m m m m miss J J J  Jumper !”  I am not overly DS literate so I said, “That’s OK, lets go get him out of the adoption center.”  But the 6 year old knows the rules, once they go in, they never come out.  She lost Jumper forever.  So I go into the tools and look at the album of pictures that she took of her dogs so that I would know who I was looking for if indeed I could find him.  My daughter really started crying hard then when she realized that Jumper was the only dog that she forgot to take a picture of so now she’ll never be able to see him again in any way, shape or form.  It honestly broke my heart.  So I’m madly searching for anything to give her hope and I found it.  There is a bubble that says you can earn points and get more space for your dogs so that you can adopt more dogs.   “AHA!”  I exclaim, “All you have to do is play this game enough to get a bunch of credits, then you can go back into the adoption center and find a Husky like Jumper.”  Or, I pray to myself, the actual Jumper.  She was thrilled, her eyes lit up and she had her stylus whipped out like a pro.

I immediately realized my mistake.  I transformed my well-adjusted, multi-talented daughter into a social outcast gamer in just one day.  As expected, I am now setting the oven timer for game time while Jumpers very existence hangs in the balance.

Well, my husband and I finally broke the seal on parenthood, we went to the Emergency department for the first time for stitches.  I can’t believe we dodged that bullet for so long.  Just lucky I guess.

The night started out with just looking for something to do, so we decided to drop off my nieces’ birthday gift (only 2 weeks late).  My in-laws invited the kids to jump on there new trampoline complete with netting and my kids were thrilled.  This lasted for about 10 minutes (I know this because my wine glass was only on it’s second top-up), then my middle daughter fell while trying to exit the trampoline and she managed to catch a spring with the outside of her eyelid.  Whenever I think of how close she came to her eyeball, I feel nauseous.

Long story short, we didn’t get home until 11:30 pm and I decided today that we were going to have a very lazy day since we have a “Meet the Teacher BBQ” tonight.  Nice huh?  My beautiful blonde, blue-eyed daughter gets to meet her teacher and class with a black eye and matching stitches.  I suppose it’s a good conversation starter so long as it doesn’t start with “That girl looks like Frankenstein!”

Anyhoo, back to the lazy day.  It was about noon, I was in my exercise clothes  (sadly they weren’t Lululemon, more like Walmart circa 2001), and the kids were in their PJs when the doorbell rang.  It was the Purolator guy delivering some gift cards that my husband had ordered on my behalf.  For some reason my husband had ordered them with Dr. before my name as opposed to Mrs.  Now the Dr. isn’t a lie, it’s just that with a PhD, you have to be careful who you tell because you don’t want someone to whip off their pants to ask you if some part of their anatomy looks strange.  So the conversation went like this:

Purolator Guy:  Looks into living room and takes in 3 kids with mismatched pajamas and a Mama slob, “You’re a doctor?”  Utter disbelief registers on his face as he considers that I might be an identity thief.

Me: “A PhD before kids, this is my new life.  How the Mighty have fallen, eh?”

Purolator Guy: “Sorry ’bout that.”

Me: “No prob.”  Close door.

Then I think to myself, “Is he sorry about judging a book based on its cover?  Or is he really feeling sorry for me and how my life turned out?”  Is this how people perceive my way of life?  Am I to be pitied because I’m not living the fast-paced life of an overworked researcher/mother.  Yeesh!  Maybe I’m reading to much into this, he probably apologized because it’s the National default statement, “I’m from Canada, sorry.”  For my own peace of mind, I choose to believe the latter.

On the bright side, I exercised today so that makes two days in a row!  Yay me!

My bad, I didn’t do the big weigh-in during week one.  The day that I had planned to start turned into a special day for the kids – Zoo, McDonalds, ice cream, you get the picture.  Then yesterday was my birthday (38!) and today is Monday so I thought to myself, “There is no better time to start than the Monday following my yearly cake gorge!”  Actually, I am lucky enough to have many cake gorging occasions but that is another blog for another time.

I weighed myself and took my measurements this morning and I was pleasantly surprised that I just made it into the “hourglass” category by the hair on my chinny chin chin (I am of European decent, they do exist).  So here are my stats as they stand today:

Height – 5′ 4”

Weight – 144

Chest – 37.5”

Waist – 36.5”

Hips – 38”

You See?  Almost a SpongeBob Squarepants stunt double but not quite.  I also took some “before” pictures as an added bonus.  I really hope that the “after” pictures are an improvement but I’ve been fighting this particular 10 pounds since 2003 so we’re rather attached to each other by now (love hate relationship).  By the way, if you are a friend and I tell you to check out the blog, be a pal and NEVER DISCUSS THE PICTURES!  The picture of me sitting down is my view of things, very doughy!  I don’t even want to know what my backside looks like, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

So what exactly am I going to do about the situation?  I am of course going to cut back on birthday cakes, chips, McDonalds (the fries and Big Macs anyway), ice cream and other essentials.  I’ve been to Weight Watchers several times so I know the drill.  Lots of veggies, water, chicken, fish, and misery.  The diet actually isn’t the worst part.  The worst part is the exercise.  I would never pass as “Sporty Spice” that’s for darn sure.  I’m not especially coordinated and I am horrible at self motivation.  With 3 kids, I can’t rely on someone else to motivate me because life just gets in the way and I can’t always follow through.  I know what you’re thinking, that I’m one of these moms that just needs to learn to put myself first.  Well I do plan to prioritize exercise but I still have to be flexible as far as the time of day that I can get it done.  This is the part that sucks because some days, I don’t have time until 9 pm and who wants to exercise right before bed?  I’m just going to have to suck it up because it sure beats the alternative – 5 am!!! It’ll never happen.

I have purchased the Wii Fit board and the Wii Active program so my first commitment will be the 30 day challenge.  I like this idea because I won’t leave my house to exercise especially in the winter after I’ve spent the entire day chauffeuring the kids around.  Also, I know exactly how long the programs are so I can just run downstairs when I have a quiet half hour and get it done.  The last bonus is that the kids love to watch me exercise so at least I’m teaching them some healthy habits; after the McDonalds, ice cream and endless supply of birthday cakes that is!

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