Roots

I tend to dream about things that I need to do. Which is annoying because there are some mornings that I wake up feeling like all I did all night was make a mental to-do list. Last night, I thought that it was kind of sad that this blog had taken a turn for Weightlossdom. When I really started it to talk about all things Mommy. So back to my roots I go.

As I type this, Plaza Sesamo plays in the background while Ryan and Paul play. I think Ryan is dangerously close to saying "hi". He has a walker (yes, bad mommy, I know) that says "hi! hi! hi!" when it's turned on. I swear I've heard something close to "hi" a couple of times. Yesterday, we went to visit our good friends, Jonathan, Kelli, and their baby, Aiden. Aiden is only 3 weeks younger than Ryan, and it's so fun to watch the boys interact. Or, try to force them to play together. Both seem disinterested in each other. I wonder when babies start to play with other babies. Ryan doesn't go to daycare and I'm worried about his social skills, as he isn't around other kids very often at all. I think Kelli and I both want to have well adjusted kids and are going to try to get together more often.

Today's Sunday. It's cold and wet outside and I'm sitting here sipping my coffee while Ryan wanders around the house. I can't keep up with that kid. His dad is in charge right now. As thrilled as I am that he's growing and learning and moving, I do kind of miss the days when I could put him around and turn around for 2 seconds without him moving.

He's 8.5 months old tomorrow. I can't believe how fast the time has passed. When he was a newborn and I was in a haze of postpartum baby blues (seriously, it was bad), I remember Paul telling me that it would get easier when we stopped measuring Ryan's life in days. And then it turned into weeks. And here we are, 8.5 months later and we're dangerously close to measuring his life in years. He can crawl like a madman, pull himself to standing on just about any stationery object, sit himself back down (finally!), and cruise around furniture at a too-dangerous-for mommy-to-look speed. He also is getting to be a pro at putting himself to sleep without our help. I snap pictures of him at every opportunity. I don't want to forget.

Well, Ryan's crawled around the corner for the 10th time looking for me. Note to self: When purchasing our next home, don't buy a house with an open floor plan. Doors. Lots of doors.

Win

I weighed in this morning and was shocked to see a 2.5 loss. I'm up to 7 lbs now! I worked really hard to stay within my points this week. Last weekend, I relaxed a bit and went out to dinner with my husband, had a margarita, and also an ice cream sundae. But it was the single serving, not the double!! So I worked hard not to go over in my daily points since I figured I had probably used up my weeklies on the ice cream and mexican food.

I'm pleased with my progress. I'm averaging about 2.3 lbs a week, which is good. I haven't felt deprived since I discovered a delicious treat! I call it Peanut Butter Treat (original, I know).

2 tbsp fat free cool whip
1 tsp peanut butter
mix it together and use it as a dip. Or just eat it as soft serve! I usually double the recipe and top it with mixed berries.

It's great to have at night when I'm feeling especially snacky. I find that the busier I am, the less concerned with food I am. Lucky for me, I'm slammed at work (hence the near abandonment of this blog) and therefore I am too preoccupied to think of anything except work until my bladder forces me to leave my desk. Most of the time, I get home and am exhausted, begin my 2nd job as Mommy and manage to cook dinner, clean the kitchen, put the baby down, and shower before 8:00. By then, I want to eat a big ole bowl of carbs or chocolate. My peanut butter snack has been a good substitution.

Work has been insane for the last 3 weeks. We've been preparing for lots of organizational changes, every single one of them positive changes for the people affected. The announcements were finally made yesterday and it's such a relief! With all the anticipation surrounding it, you could cut the tension with a knife. Sadly, one of my mentors and friends is now going to be working in another location. I'm going to miss being able to stop by his office and chat with him about anything.

Other good news this week! I got a Nook! I was vehemently against e-readers. I couldn't possibly imagine not having paper in my hands reading. The weight of the book. The way it feels in my hands. It all felt a little Fahrenheit 451ish to me. Then I thought about how weird it felt to download entire albums and how I wondered why anyone would download music when you could buy an actual physical cd! And have something to hold and look at! Now, the thought of buying a cd confuses me. Where do you even buy cds anymore? Why wouldn't you just download the music? And that's when it struck me that I needed to just suck it up and get my fancy new e-reader. And. I. Love. It.

I love it so much that I'm going to go read it now.

Happenings

I got nothin'.

No, really, this week flew by with nothing out of the ordinary or especially exciting happening. I went to work and came home every day. That's about it.

However, today is the beginning of Week 3 of Weight Watchers. It was my 2nd weigh in today and I'm proud that I lost 1 lb. I know 1 lb doesn't seem like a lot, but coupled with last week's lost, I'm negative 4.5 lbs! Better than 0 lbs! I was frantic last night, worrying that I hadn't lost any weight and might have actually gained weight despite following the program. On my way to work, I considered all of the things I could be doing to move my progress along.

First of all, I need to get more physical activity. I refuse to say exercise because I loathe exercising. It's not fun and makes me feel bad about myself. So I decided that I'm going to park further away at work. This is a big deal because I get there so early that I park mere feet from the door. I mean, who doesn't like rock star parking?! I know it seems like a little thing, but for someone whose physical activity is limited to walking to the potty and back, a few extra steps in the parking lot will be beneficial. We'll see how it goes from there. Plus, I'd rather do this now than when it's 1000 degrees again.

Secondly, I need to spread my WW points out through the day more evenly. For example, I'm left with 16 points tonight after work today. That's a lot of points (nearly half of my daily limit) to "spend" between 6:30 (when Ryan goes to bed) and 9 PM (when I go to bed). I need to eat less in the evenings and more throughout the day. That's step 2.

I guess that's just two things. Two things that I can commit to for one week.

In other news, work is getting increasingly busier by the day and I can't say I hate it. I'm just the type of person who works best under pressure, so being busy is a good thing for me. Ryan and Paul are both doing great. Ryan turned 8 months old this past Monday and is busier than ever. He only gained half a pound from last month and is still 27 inches tall. He's starting 3 meals a day, up from 2 meals a day and has tried tons of things. There isn't much he doesn't like! He's crawling like crazy and loves to cruise too. Biggest achievement over the last month: He can sit down from standing. Seems like a small thing, but it's really huge and I'm proud of him!

Untitled.

I often find myself, on the weekends, thinking, "Wow, I would really love to X, but Ryan's here...". Replace X with things like clean out the guest room closet, clean out the coat closet, clean out the game room, paint the game room...the list goes on. He takes good naps, but sometimes you really just need a productive day to get shit done.

Today, I took him to my mom's around 2:00. He's crawling now, cruising along every stable surface in our house, and is into everything. It's hard to keep up with him. He's spending the night with my mom so we could get some work done. Like I was saying, we dropped him off at 2:00 and said our goodbyes. We went to Wal-Mart to get groceries (ugh, don't even get me started) and came home, did some things around the house and the quietness started seeping in.

No baby babbles of mamamamamamama or dadadadadada, or, his favorite..nenenenenenene
No singing drum, or singing school bus, or singing zoo, or singing ball popper thing.
No *slap slap* *slap slap* on the tile floor as he crawls

It was quiet. My husband was in the other room, I, in the kitchen planning our dinners for the week. I started to cry. I miss my son. He's going through a mommy stage, where I'm the one he wants. He wants ME to rock him, ME to feed him, ME to carry him, memememememe. The break is certainly welcome, but I find myself thinking, "What if it was like this all the time? What if Ryan didn't exist?" My life would feel so empty.

I do realize this was my life before children. It wasn't empty then. I just miss those baby babbles this afternoon, I guess.

Weight Watchers: Week 1

I joined Weight Watchers last Saturday. I blew it off until the REAL New Year started when I went back to work on Monday. So today is Day 5. I changed my weigh in day from Saturday to Friday, so I weighed in today. I have a total loss of 3.5 lbs.

I am proud of myself.

I really think the key is in meal planning. I planned everything I ate, which wasn't really that hard for me because I had been doing that before I joined Weight Watchers. I just had to make some slight modifications. So as much as I miss my bagel and honey nut cream cheese for breakfast, my protein bar and banana isn't a bad trade. I've still been taking leftovers from dinner for lunch, but I am finding that my regular old recipes are a bit high in points. So I plan on looking at the WW website more this weekend and getting some good recipes to try. I am going to miss E-Mealz, though, because they make your grocery list (store specific) and everything!

I do have to say that at first, while I was skeptical about the new points system, I really like that fruits and veggies are "free". The banana I eat is 0 points and I've been eating a tomato with lunch that's 0 points too. It's going to be pretty awesome when summertime is here and I can enjoy berries and fruit for freeeee!

But, for now, I'm going to enjoy my delicious cheese pizza (within my points) and watch some tv with the hubs.

I almost forgot!

With all the resolving of things in keeping with the tradition of the New Year, I almost forgot to mention some exciting news.

First, and most exciting, we are credit card debt free. I'll say it again: WE ARE CREDIT CARD DEBT FREE. Woo hoo! I've been working at this for the last 3 years and we're finally DONE. My advice to people who are trying to get out of debt: keep on keepin' on and take advantage of every little thing you can. I've transferred balances to cards with no interest. I've spent every last extra cent we had on paying off debt. While not fun for my husband, I got a bizarre thrill of seeing that balance go down. We also stopped using credit cards unless there was some extenuating circumstance. And then, we shopped around for the best card. I don't care about points or miles. I'm all about the interest free stuff. Finally, we were very fortunate to receive some money on a few occasions. Once was our wedding. Once was my first bonus at work, and finally, what got us down to $0 was the money from our homeowners insurance because of Home Invasion 2010.

Secondly, we're finally redecorating our "game room". I might have mentioned this before. Can't remember. When we moved into our house, we agreed that room would be used to house all of my husband's White Sox stuff. He has tons of it and when we lived back in Illinois, we had nowhere to display it. So now that we do, he sure displays it. Anyways, the walls are RED. Like red red red. We decided to leave them as-is. The flooring was cream carpet, same stuff we have everywhere else in our house. My mom and Diane stained the concrete in their "game room" and it came out looking awesome. We decided to do the same. Now we have a hideous black concrete floor that is uneven and looks awful. We decided that since we're credit card debt free, we're using the rest of the homeowners insurance money for paint and using my bonus for flooring. I am super excited because when we had Ryan, he preferred the sunlight of our formal living room. It has since become our family room and we're anxious to get back to our "game room" digs and have our nice formal living area back.

Thirdly, my bff Kelli keeps me on my toes. Always has. She makes sure that I'm on top of my shit by being on top of her shit. So when she mentioned that she had started thinking about ideas for her son, Aiden's birthday (who is younger than Ryan), I decided I had better get on it. I know it's still 4 months away (well, next Monday it will be 4 months) but you only get one First Birthday. I don't remember any of my birthdays except for my 10th birthday (bowling alley) and maybe my 14th (beach, Padre Island. I slept in). I know Ryan won't remember his first birthday, but how awesome would it be for him to see pictures and think, "wow that looked cool, my mom worked hard on that". So I checked out some websites and have some super cute ideas.

So tomorrow, reality sets in. It's the beginning of peak season at work in my specific sub department of HR and I'm pretty sure I won't be seeing the light of day until April. I always think the holidays last from Thanksgiving (wasn't that just yesterday?) to the time you go back to work after New Year's Day. So tomorrow, the New Year starts. I guess it's now or never.

What we resolve.

First post of the new year! Huzzah!

Everyone makes New Year's Resolutions. Well, maybe not EVERYONE, but many people do. I am one of them. I love New Year's Resolutions; I'll admit it. I make the same one every year and every year I might succeed for a little while but then I inevitably succumb to the deliciousness of cookies and cake and fried items.

So, again, I resolve to lose weight. In my dream world, I'll have lost 40 lbs by Ryan's first birthday and will look like I did when I met my husband 7 years ago. In reality, while 40 lbs is a pretty attainable goal for 5 months, it's ambitious and would take more dedication than I'm probably willing to put in. Probably. Anyways, I'm resolving to lose weight and here are my reasons:

1. My son requires me to chase him all over the damn house and I'm currently too fat to do so without getting winded.
2. I really want to move from 2x to 1x clothing. I have a ton of cute clothes that are just too small.
3. Everyone else I know isn't as fat as I am.
4. My face looks fat now.
5. Getting too close to not being able to shop in the big girl's section. yikes.

In reality, I just want to be healthier. Someone very close to me had the lap band surgery this year. $10K later and she is healthier, but I see the struggles she goes through and I don't want to be there. So I joined Weight Watchers (again) and I've already added the recipes I'm making this week. I'm a little leery about posting this publicly because there are a few people who I know in person that read my blog and I'd rather not discuss this with anyone I know aside from my husband. So if you're reading this and we know each other personally, do both of us a favor and don't mention it. I promise it will save us from an awkward conversation.

So, like many people, losing weight is my New Year's Resolution. I'm making DH participate, so he has no choice but to make that his as well. Ryan's resolution is to continue growing and learning and eat his spinach so he can be big and strong like Popeye. That kid is everywhere now and is going to have the bumpiest head from all the bumping he does.

And now I'm off to pick up toys while the little one naps.