food for thought

Food. It's something we literally need to survive and there really is no gettting around eating unless you are hooked up to a feeding tube. Everyone has to eat but at lot of the time, I don't like to eat. I have food issues - probably stemming from when I was a preteen. I do not have a healthy relationship with food even though I know what I should eat, how much I should eat, why i need certain nutrients. A lot of days I do not eat until my husband gets home from work. I don't like to eat by myself. It feels wrong for me to sit down and eat a sandwich with Dash for lunch. I would rather just open another Diet Coke and maybe a handful of Goldfish and call it lunch. I know my metabolism is slow because it is in starvation mode but it is hard for me to eat when I am not hungry and I am rarely hungry.

My eating habits probably started out as a weight loss/semi-anorexic strategy. In college I would eat once a day, a 6 inch Subway Veggie Delight Sub at around 4 pm every afternoon followed either by a long trip to the gym or hours spent drinking cheap beer or nasty vodka. I lost 20 lbs my freshman year - and it wasn't as if I had 20lbs I needed to lose. When I look at pictures of myself in college, I cannot believe that I was that skinny. I don't think I will ever be that thin again but a lot of those bad habits i started are still with me almost 10 years later.

I really want to get back into shape and lose a little bit of weight but I know in order to do that the right way that I will have to start increasing my calories. I feel silly saying that but I know thats what I have to do. I wish it wasn't so hard for me to eat regularly, I wish food didn't have such negative connotations and I could just eat a sandwich like everyone else. I'm working on it and some days are better than others. Today, is not a good day - it's almost 5 pm and I have not eaten anything except for 6 Diet Cokes. there is always tomorrow.

is it over

i had something else to write about but this week is just draining me and I need to vent.

My husband runs a golf resort and the spring is their busy season which means he is ever home  and even when he is home he is on his phone dealing with some "crisis". (however he isn't so busy that he didn't have time to play golf every day this week). I am glad he has a good job that he enjoys and that supports us but I am just overwhelmed with total children responsibility 7 days a week.

Speaking of children, my 2 year old is out of control this week. It is 2 pm and we have been through at least 30 time outs. He starts sobbing for no reason what so ever. He is constantly attempting to rip all my clothes off the hangers or trying to eat the dog food. He managed to lodge a piece of dog food up his nose yesterday. It is like he has no self control --- ahh. i can't believe i just wrote that - he is 2, how much self control should i expect him to have. There are times I ask myself if there is something wrong with him because he can never sit still, if he is watching TV he is jumping up and down, spinning in circles, doing somersaults, standing on his head. This week he is also refusing to eat - which is just adding to my stress. I keep telling myself that he will eat when he is hungry but all he wants to eat are goldfish crackers. so i let him - at least they are whole grain. he is making me tired and grouchy - he needs to take a nap so I can have a break. except he refuses to nap so there is no break.

Mackey has been sick all week - he apparently has bad pollen allergies so his eyes are swollen shut and his nose is dripping snot constantly. He isn't sleeping well probably because he is itchy and full of snot. i feel bad for the little man. I wish i could just hold him all day except i am too busy trying to prevent dash from killing himself. I am just overwhelmed which isn't like me.

I think I need a vacation. and a giant margarita.

an open letter

dear parents of wild unsupervised children,

i know you know your kids are crazy and wild and think it is great that you bring them to the McDonalds Play Area to burn some of it off. BUT please supervise them or at least stay in the freakin playground to make sure they are not scaling the outside of the playarea which in turn causes my 2 1/2 year old to attempt to do so. If you were in the same area as your three rambunctious children you would have seen them tormenting a small child and not stopping until said child's mother had to climb up 3 sets of tubes to rescue the sobbing 3 year old. You would have seen your 5 year old dump his orange Hi-C on top of his 7 year old brother. You would have seen the looks given by your 10 year old when 2 other parents tried to let him know that it is not okay to take everyone shoes and place them at the top of a 3 story slide. If you had chosen to watch your kids instead of sit inside and clip coupons  - you would have told the oldest one that it is not okay to eat someone elses french fries. i mean mickey d's fries are like gold and i don't really want to share. After being around your kids for 30 minutes, I can totally understand why you wanted a break but as a parent of a very impressionable 2 year old, i would rather him not learn how to karate kick while jumping off the kiddy playground or how if you suck in really hard you are able to sneak into the fenced off area. so next time - just watch them or at least sit inside the playarea and pretend to watch them. um - thanks.

i'm not perfect but ...

so i am not a perfect parent, i never have claimed to be one and I think most of the time I have absolutely no idea what I am doing and am just trying my best BUT i know bad parenting when i see it. I am not talking about different views on childrearing or parents that require thier kids to sit in the stroller at all time or even parents that spank or use other discipline that doesn't work for our family. I am talking about adults bullying their own children - I am amazed how often lately I have been seeing it and it breaks my heart.

we were at Dinosaur World about a week ago and there is a playground where the kids can play if they havehad enough of the dinosaur exhibits. It was just me and a friend w/ our kids and another couple and ar 4 year old son. The playground was on the bigger size and the slide did have a giant drop-off at the end which is what started this disgusting parenting episode. Dash is a brave little kid and he climbed up the mountain climbing wall and went to go to down the slide which was a little too fast and made him fall onto the ground when he was finished. He brushed it off and went back playing. The 4 year old was in line to go down the slide after Dash and he decided not to go after he saw him fall. The kid's dad starts SCREAMING at him,"what are you a P***Y, don't be so scared, you P***Y. The kid ignored him but the dad did not stop adn then the mom started taunting him. The words they tossed around were not words I would yell at my worst enemy .... and especially not a little kid. The kid looked so discouraged, he tried to hide from them in a tunnell and they just continued to degrade him."Loser, Girl, P***y, F**" - all of this to a little timid 4 year old boy who they had apparently cared enough for to take him to spend the afternoon at Dinosaur World.

My friend and I stood there in silence, not really sure what to do. They didn't appear to be people that would handle a confrontation very well and I am not a confrontation person but something needed to happen. I told the boy that the slide was very scary and I would have been scard too, just trying to reassure him or something. My friend, much more outspoken than I am, went up to the father as we were leaving and told him that his job was to build him up and not to tear him down. The man did not respond but I hope it at least made him think about what he was doing.

we hear so much about bullying these days and it is everywhere but it should never be in a child's home. A child should not be bullied by the very people that are supposed to protect him. It just breaks my heart that there are kids that have to live like that, that think it is normal to be belittled and ripped apart by their parents. I try to go out of my way to make Dash feel like every little thing he accomplishes is a big deal - and maybe he claps for himself a little too often and for the silliest things but at least he is proud and feels worthy.

what would you have done in that situation?

the name game.

can i get a redo? is it horrible that I am even asking that.

 this is what was on the white board in our L&D room when Mackey was born ...

Mackey is on the top - but it is probably the name the we discussed the least. This was our reduced list - when we first got into the labor room, we had over 20 names on the board. twenty.

 and we were having a baby that very day.

what was wrong with us. why could we not decide.

 I wanted to name him Kellen, but Brent wasn't sold. We had agreed on Tate but hated that there were no nicknames except Tater and then a friend named her dog that - so it moved down my list.

Cruz was in the final 3 after he was born - but i decided a blonde Cruz just didn't seem right.

 Plus Cruz = cross in Spanish and our last name is rather religious.

Beckett sounded too much like Bucket. Max was too common. I love Brigg but Brent not so much.

Lincoln and Dexter were cute in that nerdy kind of way.

Rio was a little out there for Brent to go for but I could have convinced him if I wanted.

Breaker was a name we called Mack for almost 2 months - but we decided it was too far off the mainstream but kept it on our list in case the baby was born w/ a broken clavicle (seriously. notice the asterix next to it)

somehow Mackey became Mackey by reason of deduction I guess.

I wish I could go back. I wish I could have a redo but even to this day I don't know what I would name him. I wish the mean birth certificate lady didn't rush me to name my baby I had held for all of 3 minutes and was in an entire other hospital so I couldn't even look at him while I decided. I wish I didn't have the worst migraine ever and just chose a name quickly so the lady would leave the room and turn the lights out. I wish I

wasn't so indecisive so my beautifyl baby would have a name that I really loved.

some days he is starting to seem like his name - and after almost 7 months I think it is too late to change it.

I call him "Macks" most of the time - so maybe I should have just named him Max.

I am still mad at my friend for stealing my "name" and naming her stupid dog Tate.

next time, if there is a next time, i am naming my child before she is born.

rain.

today it is raining. and usually i hate rain. it means we usually stay inside and try to find stuff to do all day. it means the dogs will bark at the thunder all day long and slowly drive me insane. but today i think I like the rain. we needed the rain and we needed some time at home. lately we have been go, go, go. today we are going to stay in our jammies and read books and watch movies together. if I am feeling brave maybe i will get the fingerpaints out - maybe. i will finally have the time to put away the 8 loads of folded laundry that have been sitting in baskets for the last week. i will cuddle the little babe on the couch and hold him as he fights a nasty cold. it is funny to think that I already needed a break from the "summer" days, but even 85 and sunny can get old and montomous after awhile. There is something about a gray and dreary day that allows you to finally start tackling things on your to do list, I don't feel like I am missing out on anything because I envision everyone else staying at home and trying to avoid getting wet. so today we stay home and recharge because I hear tomorrow is supposed to be 85 agan and I am pretty sure the beach is calling my name.

bay-beeeee

this week Dash has finally started to pay a little bit attention to the baby (he seriously sounds like that woman from Seinfeld who screeches "you gotta see the bay-beeee"whenever he says it). however much I am glad he is showing some love to his future playmate - he has chosen a somewhat dangerous way to show it. he has been finding the smallest things and giving them to him because to him I guess small equates to baby. Today I found him giving the baby the smallest toy fish you can imagine - I don't even know where it came from, it was about 1centimeter long and maybe a milimeter wide, seriously minature. Yesterday, he came up to me with a Micro-Machine, remember those cars that were sold by the world's fastest talker that looked like Mario. I'm pretty sure they haven't even been made in the last decade and I have no idea why one would in our house. Dash thought it was the perfect present for the "bay-beeee" - and he throw the biggest fit when I took it away from him. I am starting to think that the machine from Honey I Shrunk the Kids is hiding in his bedroom because he is currently playing with the world's smallest dinosaur and I am pretty sure that he is going to try to shove in Mack's mouth in the next 10 minutes. I guess it is time to search the house for all the mini toys he is finding - I really don't want to be calling 911 because my 6 month old is choking on a Polly Pocket that his brother thought would be the perfect gift for the bay-beeee.

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Dashy was so much bigger than Mackey is at 6 months



addict.

i admit it. i have an addiction. it is starting to become a problem.

i love target. I cannot help but direct my SUV into the lot at least 4 times a week. I find myself wandering the aisle aimlessly with a toddler in the back of the cart eating popcorn and the baby hanging out in the Ergo. I go when I am happy. I go when I am bored. I go when I am stressed. I go when I need something. I go when I cannot even think of anything I need to buy. and I never leave empty handed.

today I went just because my friend said she was going. I had already been yesterday. I did not need to buy anything. nothing at all. but overnight the target clearance fairies must of arrived with thier little gun that shoots red stickers onto items that I never knew I needed. I filled my cart with a bunch of useless stuff that I had to get just because it was super cheap, okay not all of it is useless - but some of it is.

- i bought 8, yes 8, playtex 9 oz toy story sippy cups b/c for some reason they were priced $1.96 for 2, not even on clearance, i'm pretty sure someone messed that up in the computer or something. so i bought them all. i don't even think i have room for 8 more sippy cups. but they were SO cheap, i couldn't resist.  



-I bought 2 crayola colorwonder sound studios, somethying i never knew we needed but for $5.74, i just couldnt resist. i mean what kid doesnt want to hear what the are coloring come to life, right. and having 2 of something is better than 1, i suppose. maybe the extra will be a gift, maybe.



-I bought a Mickey's Mouse Playhouse playset that we really didn't need and I am sure will sit in the corner to collect dust but Dashy liked it in the store and it's little red tag said it was only $3.67. the box was a little torn up and it was the only one - probably an online return since i havent seen it in the store. seriously I have a problem and our house already has way too many toys.


-i also bought some nail polish in a somewhat coral color that I probably will never use and will find in a bin in the bathroom in 5 years with all the oil congealed on the top and I will throw it away with dozen of other makeup items that have those red tags on them and are never used once they enter my house.

-i did buy some bread and goldfish crackers - we needed those. at least the goldfish, the bread will probably be thrown away in 2 weeks after only 2 slices were eaten but at least it is somewhat of a staple.

that was today's trip - don't even asked my what i bought yesterday.