The Craziest Loser

Every week I watch the Biggest Loser on TV. I love watching this show because it's inspiring to see these people lose the weight and feel great about themselves. I especially love the finale show where you really see what a change they've made. It's great! The irony of course is that I would watch it while snacking on some Doritos or cookies and milk. Ha ha. This year is different though. Since I am no longer planning on having more children, the time has come to lose the extra weight that I've been jostling around. As little as 7 years ago, I was at a pretty good weight, but then came marriage and school and kids and the weight went up and up and up.

Since the peak of this last pregnancy I have managed to drop 40 pounds. I would still like to lose 20 more and be around where I was seven years ago. I think the breastfeeding has helped tremendously with these first 40, so I kind of want to keep going since I have this running head start if you will. I'm setting a goal to lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks. I shall call it mini-me my 20/20 plan. Let's see how well this goes. I guess I'll be doing my own Biggest Loser except without the screaming trainers and the nationally televised weigh ins (thank God for that).

In the spirit of my new weight loss goals, yesterday I went to the gym, but I forgot my towel. If you don't have a towel, you can't go into the main room where all the machines are so I had to find an alternate way to work out (I could have paid a dollar for a towel rental, but I don't like using other towels....plus I'm really cheap like that). I thought about doing one of the classes, but realized that I had just missed the last class. I then remembered that there were some machines on the 4th floor. Perfect, I'll do that! I climbed the 1,001 stairs it took to get to the fourth floor and noticed that only one machine was empty. Ah I'm in luck I thought. Until I got on the machine that is.

The impending trap of death was precariously perched on the edge of a flimsy little railing four floors up (I am not comfortable with heights). And of course it had to be a stairmaster machine. A machine that would make me feel like I'm climbing even higher and higher just about to step off the rail. I worked out with much trepidation and held on to the machine for dear life. I realized this was going to be a long 30 minutes because I couldn't figure out where to focus my eyes. If I looked down, my knees got wobbly. If I looked straight ahead and saw no floor my knees got wobbly. If I closed my eyes, I was afraid of falling off the machine and over the railing. I finally decided to just stare at the controls on the machine. I was only on the machine 1 minute and had already broken into a sweat, not from working out, but from freaking out.

At this point, my mind started making up scenarios. What if this platform collapses and I fall over the railing? What if the machine goes bonkers and it catapults me over the railing? Could I hold on to the railing for dear life? If so, for how long? How could I hoist myself back up? Then the sane side of my brain tried to talk me off the ledge. Claudia, the building is well constructed, the platform will not collapse. Besides if it does, it doesn't matter what machine you're on, you're still fucked. The machine is a quality machine and will not break. If it does, it will not catapult you over the ledge, it will simply stop functioning. Then the freaky side would start again. What if I'm trapped on the ledge and I have to jump all the way over there, could I make it? What if someone pushed me over?

Like I said, it was a long 30 minutes.

After my freakout workout, I headed down the stairs and noticed that part of the stairs jutted out past the fourth floor platform I was on. So I realized that if I indeed did fall over the railing, if I could just manage to hold on to the railing and scoot over to the left for a couple of feet, I would be able to let go and land on the stairs. Well now, that changes everything. In that case, I think I CAN workout on the fourth floor. You know, since I have a back-up plan and all now.


Insane people should not be allowed to go to the gym.

Bye bye hair

Thanks for weighing in on the new hairstyle issue. On Monday, I was off work for JJ's pediatrician appointment (and my dentist appointment), so I bit the bullet and went to the salon to make the cut. I realized that I just kept putting it off because as much as I wanted to part with my hair, I was also very attached to it. I sat in the chair and explain to the guy that I wanted to donate the hair, so he tied it up in a rubber band and cut it off. I could feel the scissors slicing through. Fortunately, I was on the phone with Jenny at the time, so she distracted me from the traumatic event. After it was cut off, my head felt so much lighter! He gave me my 15" pony tail and proceeded with the new hair cut. It's funny because I had decided that I wanted style #1, but I hadn't mentioned it to the guy yet. As soon as he saw me though he said "oh we can do a cute cut that's shorter in the back than in the front"....I was like "um, yeah, OK!". That was easy.

After my cut and style was finished, I instantly loved it. I put my ponytail in my purse and walked out of the salon with a spring in my step. It's amazing what a haircut can do; I felt like a million bucks. I also prayed that nothing would happen to me on the way home though. I didn't want to be that woman found dead with hair in her purse. Woman is mugged and killed, but in an odd twist, she was found carrying hair in her purse...film at 11. Or worse, what if I'm walking and part of the hair falls out of my purse. It wouldn't be long before I hear someone scream "she's got a head in her purse!".

Fortunately that did not happen (although the hair is still in my purse. I have to remember to mail it out...I feel creepy walking around with hair in my purse). I made it to my mom's house in one piece and she loved the hair. CMan liked it too. JJ didn't cry when he saw me, so I'll take that as a compliment. R on the other hand promptly exclaimed "that's different" (and not in a nice way). Well yeah, that's the point. The folks at work loved it too; I've gotten all sorts of compliments: classy, cute, hip, modern, young. It's sassy. It's wassy. It's sassywassy! (OK fine, I made up that last part).

So after all this blabbering about, I guess you just want to see the hair already. I apologize for the crappy picture, but I took the picture in the car because I forgot to do it before...and I didn't really want to make you guys wait another day. OK, no more procrastination. Click here! And here it is behind my ears, like I told you it would be. You can't see it in the picture, but the back is slightly shorter than the front. The funny thing is, I didn't look up the voting results until after the haircut and realized that my hair was a mixture of the two most picked styles (#1 and #3). How convenient! Well, I hope you guys like it, if not, I guess you can join team Ren. I am off to the post office now to mail my hair. Let's hope I don't get mugged.

6 months old!

Jordan is six months old (as of the 20th)! He sometimes sits unassisted, but is still a little wobbly, so I only sit him on the bed because he still faceplants once in a while. He's started eating baby food fruits (bananas, pears...he already eats veggies) and has recently (this past week) gotten the hang of how you eat solids from a spoon. He doesn't thrust his tongue out so much and actually swallows most of the food I give him (whereas before it ended up on the bib). He likes to babble and his first word was "cake" (he's definitely my child). When I say "CAKE?" to him he cracks up. Every time I try to make him laugh, he gets the hiccups, so I try to refrain from doing so even though he looks so darn cute when he's laughing. He's also doing the D sound, so Dada is close on the horizon I think.

Much to my amazement (the whole breastfeeding thing has been amazing to me) he is still breastfeeding. I was thinking about starting to wean (am scared of the incoming teeth), but my boy HATES formula, so I don't know what I'm going to do. I've tried Similac and Isomil. Perhaps I will try Enfamil next and if not, then Good Start. If not, then the weaning will have to wait. The weaning issue came up because my supply is going down (I've gotten lazy with the pumping and I sometimes go too long between pumps) and I really don't want to take Fenugreek like I did last time because it makes me smell like Aunt Jemima. We went to the pediatrician yesterday and she recommended that we try to feed him with a cup. Yeah. Ok.

Jordan hates the playpen, but he'll tolerate the swing. He goes to sleep around 8 or 9pm and then wakes up at around 1am to eat and then again at 4 or 5am. I have tried dreamfeeding him at 11pm with formula or breast milk, and he won't take it. He only wants mama. Because of the constant waking and feeding, he usually sleeps in my bed after the 1 am feeding. He gets really fussy in his crib and wakes up often which means less sleep for me, so I'm just trying to make things easier on myself. I will pay for it later, I just know it.

Christian LOVES his little brother, sometimes a little too much. He hugs him and kisses him and pulls his legs and gets right up in his face. Sometimes he wants to share his toys, but other times he gets mad. I think all the love is going to go away quickly once JJ starts walking and taking Christian's things though...ah, I can visualize the fights now.

I'm so glad I started this blog when Chris was 3 months old because it's fun to look back and see what similarities and differences they have. At this point with CMan, I had already done the cryitout at night and he had already slept through the night. The difference is that Cman drank formula, so that would hold him through the night. I can't do cryitout with Jordan because breast milk won't fill him up for long periods of time and I'm afraid that I'd be starving him. CMan was also sitting up by himself at this point too. Perhaps Jordan is carried too much (what a spoiled 2nd child!). Last but not least, Christian had more hair. Yesterday at the pediatrician Jordan weighed 17 lbs 3.5 oz (CMan was 17 lbs) and 26.5 inches in length (CMan was 25.5). He was in the 75% and 60th% (for weight and height) and the doc said he looks good. She would like him to transfer objects from one hand to the other and for him to play with his feet, so I'll be keeping an eye out for that. Last but not least, the Prevacid was discontinued (for two weeks-wait and see) because JJ hasn't been throwing up anymore, so we're hoping that he's outgrown the reflux. Cross your fingers!

On another note, thanks for your input on the hairstyle issue. Yesterday, I went and made the cut. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out which style I chose though...ah the suspense!

Simultaneously the shortest and longest book club meeting ever

Since I've been in dire need of adult conversation and me-time that doesn't involve having a baby attached to me, on Wednesday night I went to my very first book club meeting. It was organized by my friend Claudia and it consisted of a bunch of friends from high school; some of which I had not seen in about 15 years! The book we read and "discussed" was Jen Lancaster's Such a Pretty Fat. It's about her experiences with trying to lose weight. At times when I was reading the book it seemed to me like she was eating shit and making excuses and it got a little annoying, like, OK, this is a dieting book, get to it! Easier said than done I guess. The author has a blog and she is very funny. I'm amazed that I actually got to finish the book (it was seriously competing with my finisht the Twilight book series time). I can't say the same for the rest of our book club members though.

The get-together was at Claudia's beautiful home and there was quite a delicious food spread for us to snack on while we discussed the diet book (the irony of that is not lost on me, I assure you). Let me tell you though, seeing old friends after so long, makes it really really really hard to discuss a book. We discussed it alright, for like 5 minutes. After that it was on to more important pressing discussions like why Chrissy has 9 bottles of laundry detergent in her house, or the crazy things that Claudia's crappy ex boyfriends did, or what ever happened to so-and-so, or why was I constantly "in love" with (and stalking) half the male population of our high school, and Patty's observations about how we all look the same, well "our faces" anyway (ha ha!)

We laughed, ate, talked and drank wine (not me, I get sleepy) and with four bloggers in residence, I have a feeling there will be plenty of coverage of the event. I guess you could say it was also a mini-blogmeet!

A wonderful time was had by all and 4 hours later, it was time to go home. I really had a blast reconnecting with these ladies and can't wait to do it again next month! Everyone was super nice and it made me wonder why I wasn't better friends with these people in high school (oh yeah, that's right, I was too busy stalking boys). Either way, I'm glad we're friends now.


*This reunion was brought to you by Facebook . Photos courtesy of Amanda and Chrissy via Facebook. I heart Facebook.

Not-so-Extreme Makeover

My hair is extremely long these days and I've been meaning to cut it, but not having any time and not knowing what to do with it have me completely paralyzed. I would really like to donate my hair to Locks of Love or something like that, but you have to have at least 10" of hair to give for that. I think I have that amount, but then I would be left with very short hair. I've only had very short hair once (in high school) and it did not look good. Perhaps I chose the wrong style for my face shape, but it wasn't pretty. Fortunately, I don't think my face is as round as it was back then, so maybe now I might be able to pull a short look off. The only problem would be that R would hate it but hey, it's my hair right?...and it's not like it won't grow back.

In my quest to figure out what kind of haircut I want, I was looking online and ran into this nifty little tool at ivillage. It's called the Makeover-o-Matic and you can try on all sorts of celebrity hairstyles on (how about the Sarah Palin look?). All you do is upload a picture (you need to register with ivillage first) and the nifty little makeover wizard will walk you through the process. You can try out different hair colors and even add make-up, accessories and tooth whitening! Go ahead and check it out. You will either love me for it or hate me for it (for helping you waste countless hours of your time). I warn you though, you may become addicted to how fun it is and how good it makes you look (original picture).

Can I risk it and try for short or should I stick with medium length? The only problem with some of these styles is that I hate having hair on my face, so I guarantee you the bangs will almost always be tucked behind my ears.

Check out some of the looks I created and help me decide which one I should try.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

This last one is just a shorter version of what may hair looks like now, you know, for those risk averse people out there.

Happy Love Day

Happy Belated Valentine's Day! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday filled with lovely expensive presents...err, I mean filled with love, yes, love is what I meant. Mine was filled with kickball and pasta shells and delicious children (no, I did not eat any children, I meant delicious looking).

First, I participated in a fun filled game of kickball with some coworkers. I honestly cannot remember the last time I played that game. I would say it was probably in Elementary school or Jr High (I'm aging myself because notice I didn't call it "middle school"). I felt like a kid again out there on the field, hoping and praying that the ball would not get kicked in my general direction. Hoping that if it did get kicked in my direction, that it would not fly right through my hands. Hoping that I wouldn't fall or look like a fool (no such luck) when trying to kick the ball (operative word: trying). Hoping that I wouldn't sprain my ankle while running the bases. Hoping that I actually got to run the bases. You get the point. Based on this last paragraph, I think we can safely deduce that I was not the best athlete in school. Things have not changed. Despite all the sweating (from worrying, not so much from running), I had a great time and would love to participate in a kickball league in the future. It would have to be a child's league though, in order for my skills to be evenly matched with the other players.

After the game (which we won by the way), I headed home with the kiddos to relax a bit. That evening we went to Amanda's house for a potluck Valentine's celebration with some friends. It's much simpler that way because we did not have to worry about finding babysitters or braving the crowds on a Saturday night Valentine's Day. We had delicious pasta shells and good company. Amanda even tried to get me to watch the Princess Bride since I had recently admitted (via a Facebook meme) that I had never seen that movie. What a travesty! Unfortunately, we had to leave before the movie was over (it was past my bedtime), so I still have not seen the movie. Oh well, do I get points for having seen half of it?

Last but not least, here are the delicious children:

Well, he IS dark...

The other day, CMan and I were watching TV together when a random black guy popped up on the TV. Christian says to me "Mommy, I think that's Dark Vader". Good thing I wasn't drinking anything or I would have spit it out. Ok, am I the only one that thinks that's hilarious because my hubby didn't think so. He said, don't laugh at him, I used to think the name was "Dark" Vader too until someone corrected me (when was that? last week?). I thought it was quite funny. Anyway, that reminded me of my friend Jenny and her carpet milk. You know that old commercial for McArthur Milk? The song went "We all grew up, on McArthur, McArthur milk!". Well, Jenny thought it said "We all threw up on the carpet...the carpet milk!". Ha ha!

And now...

A gratuitous baby shot

Why'd you give me such a long name mom?

Christian is learning to write his name at the daycare he goes to. He's learned the first three letters already, but not the rest. Sometimes he makes up his own order: Chrstiian or Chrtsiain. He seems to know what lettes are in his name, but not the order of them all yet.

Here he showed off his writing skills. He wrote this all by himself (mommy just helped by telling him which letter to write next). I feel bad for him though because his last name is 11 letters long; and they wonder why I kept my maiden name.


The other day, we were at a stop light and the following conversation ensued:

C: Mommy, green means go, red means stop and yellow means slow down.
Me: Yes babe.
C: What does blue mean?
Me: There is no blue
C: It ran out of batteries?


PS There's an update on my dad in the previous post. Thanks for your well wishes.

When it rains....UPDATED

My mom just called me to let me know that my dad has been hospitalized in El Salvador (he was over there for business) because they found a blood clot. He's have a catheterization done. We will hear from my uncle when the procedure is done. My mom is probably going to fly over there to be with him. I'm so worried about him because he's had other health complications recently (not just this) and it just seems like it's too many things at once.

UPDATE: My dad is doing better. It turns out it wasn't a blood clot, but a clogged artery (just as bad). He had been having chest and neck pains so he went to the ER. The Cardiologist said if he had waited another hour to go to the hospital, he would not have made it. There was definitely a guardian angel watching over him yesterday. He is still in the hospital and provided that his recouperation goes well, he can fly home on Friday. My sister stayed with him at the hospital last night (she was in El Salvador handling her late husband's affairs...poor thing, as if she didn't have enough on her hands). I thank God that he is doing OK.