Author Archives: Cindy

Random Updates

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Diet Update: I still haven’t cheated, while Dave is being much more lax about the whole no-sugar, no-white-flour thing. Which is fine for him – he’s a guy, he can probably drop ten pounds just by thinking about cutting sugar out of his diet. Grrr. (Ok, full disclosure: I did have one roll of Smarties, but I was getting the low blood sugar shakes, so I panicked and went for the candy.) Anyway, I’m starting to feel better, which I guess means my body is almost finished with this whole sugar detox process. And I’m coming up with some interesting dinner recipes, which has been challenging (no mashed potatoes or pasta on the side? what are we supposed to eat?!?!), but we’ve found some things that we really like, so that’s good.

Sippy Cup Update: I think I won this particular battle in the Toddler War. Yesterday and today, every time Catie was thirsty and asked for a drink, she took the sippy cup from me and drank it on her own with no objection at all. Awesome. Mommy FTW!

Weather Update: We’ve had this crazy wind/rain storm off and on all day today, and it knocked out our power for about two hours. I was bitching and moaning about it until I heard about the flooding out in Seattle, looked up road closures for King County, and found out that sure enough, if we were still in our old house, we’d be flooded in and not able to go anywhere. So now I’m shutting up because I am just ever so thankful that we don’t live there anymore.

Employment Update: I had a job interview today, which was for a job that I’d feel totally indifferent about (it’s fine, I wouldn’t hate it, but it isn’t my passion, so… meh?), but the salary is really impressive, so I’m sort of confused and trying to wrap my head around it. If I get the offer, I’m sure I’ll end up taking it, just because it would be a really good opportunity. But it’s kind of a moot point for now, because all I’ve had at this point is a preliminary interview with an HR person. If they decide they like me, I’ll still have two or three more rounds of interviews to get through, before I maybe, possibly, get an offer. So absolutely nothing is decided at this point. I’m trying not to worry about it, and just know that whatever is supposed to happen, will happen. You know, que sera sera or something like that.

The Sippy Cup Wars

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So far on this diet, I’m doing… ok. I’m managing. I mean, I haven’t cheated at all, but I feel like crap on a stick. I’m basically trying to re-train my brain to break some of the bad habits that I’ve gotten myself into. And it’s hard, because my brain is still trying to tell me, “no no, after breakfast, you need that oatmeal cookie.” And of course I don’t need it, so I don’t eat one. But that leaves me with the craving, which sucks. So until my brain gets out of these bad habits, I’m just feeling sort of scattered and very, very crabby. And a little weepy. Is this what it’s like when people quit smoking? Because it sort of feels like I’m trying to fix an addiction here. And I don’t even have Dr. Drew to pat me on the shoulder and tell me I’m doing a good job. (Hmmm, Dr. Drew and an oatmeal cookie, now that is something I could really go for right now… But I digress.)

Since I’m already grouchy and miserable, I decided to go ahead and take on another challenge that’s been annoying me for a while. Catie is off the bottle completely, and has been since she was about 15 months old. She is an all-sippy-cup, all-the-time kind of girl, and that’s honestly fine with me. Yes, I realize that she will soon be two years old, and I should be teaching her how to drink from a regular cup, but I’m procrastinating about that because I know it’s going to involve a lot of clean-up. And I’m lazy. She can drink from a cup with a straw, but she prefers the sippy.

The problem? She expects me to hold the sippy cup for her. She absolutely knows how to do it herself, she does it all the time when I’m not around, or say, when she’s in her car seat and I’m driving. I think she wants me to hold it because it’s her way of making sure she has my undivided attention. And you know, she already has my attention pretty much every waking minute of the day. As it stands now, every time the kiddo is thirsty, she expects me to stop what I’m doing and hold her sippy cup for her. I don’t mind doing it when she first wakes up, or before bedtime, because that’s our quiet snuggle time. But for every beverage requirement (approximately once an hour) all day long? No. Enough is enough.

So since yesterday, when she asks for her juice, I’ve been handing her the cup instead of holding it for her. She screams and throws the cup at me, and I ignore her and go about my business while she throws herself on the floor howling about what a horrible mommy I am. After a few minutes, she relents, picks up the cup and takes a drink all by herself. At which point I applaud, tell her what a big girl she is, give her a hug and a kiss on the head, and basically praise her like crazy for doing something she’s been able to do for the past year. Eh, whatever works, right?

After this, I might start working on teaching her how to drink from a regular cup. But I’m not looking forward to that at all. Can’t she learn how to do that in preschool or something?

Diet Time

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Announcement: Dave and I are starting a new diet. Well, technically Dave’s already been on one for a while – he lost 30 pounds before the holidays. He’s been doing great, I’m really proud of him. But he got off track during the holidays, and now that he’s trying to start back on his diet, I’ve decided to join him. It’s always easier to tackle a challenge with a partner, right?

And this doesn’t count as a New Year’s resolution, because I don’t believe in them. Besides, I’m starting this on January 3rd, so it has nothing to do with New Year’s, and everything to do with not liking the way my clothes feel on me. Yes, my size 12 jeans still fit, and I only weigh maybe five pounds more than I did when I got married, but I’m feeling decidedly flabbier. I figure it’s better to tackle these things when I have a small, manageable goal in front of me, rather than waiting until my size 12 jeans don’t fit me anymore, or waiting until I hit 200 pounds or something. So, I would like to try to lose ten pounds. Maybe 15, but that would put me at the peak of my weight loss after my gastric bypass, and I think I only stayed at that weight for a few months, so I’m not terribly optimistic that I can maintain that again.

It’s awkward for me to write about this because I don’t like talking about my body image issues. I feel like I’m probably going to get one of two reactions: (a) people who don’t have a problem with their weight can’t believe that I’m happy being a size 12, and they wonder how I can stand to look at my fat ass in the mirror every day; or (b) people with real weight problems can’t believe that I’m whining about wanting to lose a measly ten or fifteen pounds. What do I have to complain about? The latter reaction is probably how I would’ve felt myself before my gastric bypass, so maybe I’m projecting a little bit of my past there.

The thing is, I have accepted that I will never, ever be super-skinny. Even after surgery, a size 6 is just not in my future. It’s not in my genetic make-up. And that’s fine, I’m totally at ease with being the size of the average American woman. I don’t have to be perfect. I can walk into pretty much any clothing store and find something that’ll fit me, and that alone is more than I ever dared to hope for, before my surgery. So I’m really not complaining, I’m just scared to death of regaining the weight that I worked so hard to lose (seriously, if you think surgery is the easy way out? You are dead wrong), so I’m trying to be proactive about nipping this flabby feeling in its proverbial bud before it becomes an issue.

I think part of the problem is that having a two year-old in the house makes it impossible for me to eat healthy all the time, so I’ve just given up on even trying. If I make a peanut butter & jelly sandwich for Catie, and she only eats a quarter of it, I figure that heck, I went to the trouble to make the sandwich, and I don’t want to just throw it out, right? It seems so wasteful. So I eat it. Or when she gets a free cookie at the grocery store and decides that she doesn’t want the last two bites of it, she hands it to me, and what am I supposed to do with a piece of a cookie while I’m trying to push a grocery cart? I wolf it down and move on. And what I should do is find a trash can and toss it.

I hesitated to even mention anything about this diet on the blog, because like I said, I’m not really comfortable talking about my weight issues. But I was worried that some of my posts over the next few weeks might have sort of a cranky, “grrr I will kill the first person who crosses my path in exchange for a cookie” vibe, and I thought that might warrant some explanation. So that’s what’s going on. I don’t suddenly need Prozac, I’m just suffering from junk food deprivation. Poor widdle ol’ me.

first post of '09

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Ok, enough of all that sappiness. Y’all just want to see a hyper-after-her-bathtime toddler shake her groove thang to a Dixie Chicks song, don’t you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKWdoQkuI8g

You’re welcome.

(Oh, and apparently when I thought she said “funny” in the middle when she starts doing that floor-hop thing? Yeah, she actually said “bunny.” Which is why she was bouncing like that. Way to pay attention there, Mama.)

We had a lovely, lazy New Year’s Eve. We finally got Catie settled down and asleep around 11 p.m. (I know!) After she was finally out, Dave and I settled in on the couch to watch the countdown coverage and have a drink. (Ok, I had two. Or maybe 2 1/2, depending on how you measure. But I woke up today with no trace of a hangover whatsoever, so the point is that I didn’t overindulge.)

Dave and I managed to stay awake until midnight, at which point we gave each other a kiss and said happy new year – you know, as you do – and then we immediately clicked over to Noggin to make sure it was still there. Romantic, right?

Apparently Time Warner and Viacom settled their beef, although it’ll probably mean an extra $10 a month on our cable bill. Oh well, no matter. Those Time Warner people don’t know the kind of fury that they would’ve had to deal with if they took my Jon Stewart away from me. Not to mention that in Catie’s world, a day without the Wonder Pets is a day not worth living. So hooray, we have all of our channels. Oh, and we now have Bravo too! Yay! I’ve already recorded a Project Runway marathon, I can’t wait to catch up on most of this past season that I missed.

Today I’ve spent a good chunk of the day putting away Christmas decorations and trying to clean up the house. I’m sad to see it go, because it’s been such a fun holiday, but it’s nice to get the house back to normal. Catie came outside with me when I took our outside lights down, and she didn’t freak out and cry like I expected. In fact, she was pretty happy and adorable.

playing peekaboo around a tree

When she asked what I was doing with the lights, I told her that they had to go bye-bye for now, but we’d put them back up next Christmas. Of course, she has no concept of time so for all she knows that means they’ll be back tomorrow, but she accepted that and was fine with it. When we headed inside to get lunch, she said, “Bye, lights! Bye, Missmas! See you later!” Darn right, baby girl. Darn right.

a New Year's love letter to my husband

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Dear Dave,

I know this past year has been pretty rough on us. The moving expenses really hit us hard, and the stress from your job has been truly overwhelming for you – and by extension, Catie and me too. We’ve also had to deal with some pretty significant illnesses: Catie’s asthma diagnosis, the two different hospital stays that it’s entailed, plus all of the medications and doctor visits in between. Then there was also my mom’s chemotherapy and surgeries, your root canal, plus all of the other minor little things. And even though the move was something that we both wanted, it’s been hard on both of us, leaving our friends and all of the comforts that we had grown accustomed to in Washington.

But this has also been a really good year for us too. For one, we sold our house in the middle of a recession, which you have to admit was pretty damn fortunate. And even with as much as I miss Seattle and our friends there, I know without a doubt that we are exactly where we’re supposed to be. Every time Catie and I go outside and the neighborhood kids spot her and come running toward her screaming her name because they’re so happy to see her, I know that we are so lucky to have found this house in this neighborhood. (You know the livestock in Duvall was never that excited to see us. The horses would sometimes come to the fence to say hi, but it’s no comparison to the adulation that she gets now.) It’s been so easy for us to make friends here too, which has made the transition to a new state (heck, a new time zone) significantly nicer.

Another upside of 2008: I have loved watching Catie grow from a crawling, barely-speaking one year-old baby to a running, talking little girl with a full-on, headstrong personality of her own. I love seeing all of the various traits she picks up, some from me and some from you. I try to imagine what she’ll be like this time next year when she’s an almost-3 year-old. She’ll likely be a fluent English speaker, she probably won’t want us to carry her everywhere anymore, she’ll be sleeping in a big-girl bed, and who knows, she might even be potty-trained. It’s almost impossible to imagine, but I know that at this time last year, I couldn’t have guessed what she’d be like now. That little girl of ours amazes me every day, and I especially love watching the way she interacts with you. The way you two have your own little games, your little Daddy & Catie snuggle time in the morning, and how whenever she and I go out to run errands, the second we pull back into the driveway, the first thing she says is always, “Go see Daddy?” I couldn’t have asked for a better Daddy for her.

I really have been so proud of you this year: the way that you handled the move so easily; the way you supported me during my post-move freakout; the job stress you’ve dealt with that would’ve given lots of people a heart attack by now; the weight you’ve lost and how hard you’ve been working to get healthy; and the fantastic father and husband you’ve been. I know there’s a lot of stuff that we need to improve in the coming year, but I also know that we’ll deal with it and we’ll be fine. I read once that moving is the #2 most stressful thing a couple can go through. A death in the family is number one. Considering how well we dealt with our cross-country move (with a toddler and two cats, no less!), I think at this point we can handle just about anything.

I love you and Catie both so much, and I can’t wait to spend 2009 – and all my future years – with this little family that we’ve created.

Love,
Cindy
xoxox

[Editor’s Note: I started composing this in my head around 2 a.m. last night, and I was going to handwrite it, but then I thought: hey, blog fodder. Not like anything in here is all that private or secret. And this way it never gets lost.]

dance party, then & now

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This is my last post this year about Christmas, I swear.

I don’t know how many of y’all already saw this the first time, but during Christmas 2006, I was about 8 months pregnant with Catie, and we had this little impromptu dance party in our kitchen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRX0rt49reU

This was right after a wind storm knocked out our electricity for NINE DAYS, so I think that Dave and I were still delirious from the joy of having working appliances and hot running water again. As for the rest of my family? Well, they’re pretty much like that all the time.

(As for the song credits: the first bit is me singing “Bootylicious” – I know, right? – then we’re all dancing to a “Staying Alive” remix by a band called N’Trance. I have a lot of dance/pop on my iPod for when I work out.)

Flash forward two years later, to Christmas 2008, and apparently Catie continues our Christmas dance party tradition:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_HNOmhG-YU

The song is “Shippin’ Up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys; you might recognize it if you saw “The Departed.” For some reason, that little Irish jig/punk rock combination makes her boogie every single time. She gets bored as soon as the guy starts to sing, she just likes the intro. That’s my girl – find the 30 seconds of a song that you like and play it over and over again. (Seriously, this video is just one of about 100 times we played the song. Every time it was over, she’d say “do again?”)

My favorite part of the video is around the 1:15 mark when she says “here goes!” and then launches into a full-on, spazzy, bouncy dance.

I have a few other videos from Christmas this year over on my YouTube page, which y’all are welcome to check out if you’re looking for some time to kill. Overall, it was a really great holiday.

life & science museum outing

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My parents and brother drove home today, but Tracy’s plane doesn’t leave until tomorrow. Since we had an afternoon to kill and nothing to do (and since we’ve been vegging out around the house an awful lot lately), we decided that getting out of the house sounded like a pretty good idea. We loaded up the car and set off for the North Carolina Life & Science Museum in Durham.

Tracy and Catie

I was tickling Catie to make her laugh

The Life & Science Museum is a combination of an indoor science museum and an outdoor zoo. There was a farmyard area, a butterfly pavilion, a bear/wolf viewing area, and a train that goes around the whole park. The train was the part Catie was most excited about, until it started moving. Then she was a little unsure about the whole thing.

on the train around the Life & Science Museum

After the train, we had a bite to eat (which was overpriced, yes, but surprisingly really tasty) and hit the butterfly pavilion. Which was a major hit.

Catie pointing at the butterflies

If you’re a local, I cannot recommend it enough. It was awesome, and we couldn’t even begin to cover the whole thing in the three hours we were there. I think we’re going to have to get a membership, since I imagine it will only be more fun as Catie gets older.

Tracy leaves early tomorrow morning, and we will be very sad to see her go. Especially Catie, since she absolutely loves her “Tray-ree.” Catie’s gotten a little bit used to having her adoring audience around her full-time, so going back to just boring ol’ Mommy and Daddy is probably going to be a rough adjustment for her. Poor kid.