Nutrisystem Nation: Baby Blaming

I am going to be a part of Nutrisystem Nation!  For the next four months, I will eat all Nutrisystem, all the time.

I have thirty pounds to lose.  It is all the fault of my children.  Those little body wreckers who make me squeal with glee daily?  Those ones.  I blame them for all of the eating and lazing around that I did while I was pregnant for the past four years.

Alright...I know it is my fault that I haven't lost this weight.  The real problem isn't my kids (although I can actually blame Adelle for my stretchmarks, THANKS ADELLE) it is my lack of self control paired with all day grazing.  Being at home with my entire fridge and pantry available all the live long day seems to be too tempting for me.  A handful of pretzels, a piece of string cheese, just one granola bar...those things really add up. 

My hope with Nutrisystem is that I will learn portion control and when to stop eating.  Because it is easy to say that I will stop eating when I'm full, but everything tastes so delicious and I always manage to keep eating until I am STUFFED.  It's a problem.

My fear is that I will hate it, if I am being honest.  That I'll spend dinner looking longingly at Mark's dinner.  Or that for whatever reason it won't work and I will be stuck with this weight.  OR that it will work and I will lose all of this stupid weight and then gain it all back.

The first order of food should be coming any day and I can't wait to get started.  I was able to order most of my meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack) and I really ordered one of everything because I need to figure out what I like. 

So that's it.  I will write a weekly post about how it is going.

Want to join me in being more healthy by taking control of your weight loss?  Join Nutrisystem today by calling 1-888-853-4689 or by clicking here.
Disclosure: I am being provided the Nutrisystem Women's SUCCESS Select as a part of the Nutrisystem Nation Blogger Program, in exchange for writing about my experience with the program. All opinions are mine and have not been influenced in any way.

This is 33

My birthday was this week.  I don't really care about my birthday.  I mean, I don't expect anyone to make a big deal out of it or buy me an extravagant gift or anything.

If you were wondering, I got a heart rate monitor and some roses.  Which is a pretty dismal gift in comparison to my thirtieth birthday gift.  And most importantly, I slept for 13 glorious hours during which I did not deal with any kid BS.  I wore ear plugs and woke up totally refreshed and without a sore throat for the first time in a week.

(Adelle is trying to kill me by not sleeping, and Olivia is trying to kill me by attituding me to death.  That will be the extent of my parenting woe.  For now.)

I keep thinking that at some point I will become this really put together, efficient, goal-attaining bad ass.  I can tell you for sure that at 33?  Not yet.  Maybe next year.

Right now I am way overweight.  And not in the, "I feel so chubby you guys tell me how skinny I am so I can feel good about myself" way, but more in the, "wow, I just had to buy the biggest size in a normal people store and let's not lie, it was kinda snug oh noes" sort of way.

Last week, after doing drop off and pick up at preschool and running a bunch of errands in between, I came home to find that my pants?  My maternity pants, by the way, which I haven't stopped wearing since July 2010...had a hole in them.  A big hole.  In the crotch.  And not all hidden and discreet.  More like, HEY EVERYONE I AM CROTCH AND I AM BUSTING OUT!!!  I know that I have a tendency toward hyperbole so please let me prove to you that I am not exaggerating:

HEY EVERYONE I AM CROTCH
AND I AM BUSTING OUT!!!

During our shopping trip yesterday I had to explain to Olivia about mannequins.  Which involved repeating the word mannequin so many times that it sounded wrong.  And then last night I had a dream about that movie where the guy is obsessed with and eventually marries a mannequin.  (Here is the wiki - and the mannequin is played by Kim Cattrall LOL FOREVER.)  True story.

I can't really complain though, can I?  Cute kids, fab husband, a weight problem, and bizarro dreams.  This is 33.  I'll take it.  Maybe when I'm 34 I will be a put together, goal-attaining bad ass.  Or at least manage to wear hole-free clothing at all times.  Maybe.

Seven Months

Adelle is seven months old.  Read while I tell you about all the things she does that are the same things that every baby does when they are seven months old except I think they are special because my baybee is infinitely more interesting than any other baby ever born in this universe or any other!

It seems like the last bits of colic have gone, and now there is just a happy little ball of beef who spends her time smiling, trying to crawl, and hurling herself at any object that catches her interest regardless of the probable injury that may occur.  And she is grabby!  I was talking to Olivia and looked back at Adelle to see that she had a fist full of scrambled eggs and spinach from my plate. 



Now that she is somewhat mobile, using a combination of army crawl, backwards crawl, and rolling, she is much more content.  She can get to the things she wants to play with or to the room she wants to be in.  It seems that she likes the kitchen because she can make noise by slapping the floor and kicking the doors.  I am able to walk away from her without her crying now which is nice because I am not built to hold a baby all the live long day.

She loves to eat food.  Veggies even.  Which I will not let fool me, because Olivia loved veggies too and now?  Well, when I want to sneak a piece of chocolate and she asks me what I'm eating, I tell her veggies so that she won't ask to share.  I even let her gnaw on a graham cracker for 45 minutes while I painted cabinets.  Food bribes are the best.

She is obsessed with the dog toys despite having about 47,000 baby toys at her disposal.  She loves her sister more than anyone.   She is all smiles but will make you work for a giggle.  She is still a swaddle addict.  She is still kind of a crap sleeper but at least is getting more predictable.  Naps are around the same time each day and the night wakings are, too.  We tried some sleep training but after two weeks and a three hour middle of the night cryfest I decided that it is just easier to get my ass up in the middle of every night.  Whatever. 

There are two teeth just almost popping through.  I can feel the sharp edge of one, and the other is a big white gumbubble.  I can say with absolute certainty that this child is the Worst Teether Ever OMG.  Screaming awake every two hours all day and night until the fuckers cut through. 

I love this baby.

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

December 29th would have (Could have?  Should have?) been Ainsley and Evelyn's second birthday.  It could have been a sad day.  I wasn't sure how I would feel about it, honestly.  I don't see why a particular day has to be sad and I felt like I would be ok but I guess you can never really tell with The Sadness.

Ainsley's First Birthday Party
at Akron Children's Hospital, Reinberger Family Center

The Sadness?  It's random. 

It's rocking Adelle to sleep and noticing how the curve of her fat ass cheek looks just like Ainsley's.  It's putting a shirt on Adelle that Olivia and Ainsley both wore and realizing that my opportunities for these kinds of moments are quickly coming to a close.  It's Olivia in the back seat of the car asking me what "died" means and then saying, "remember Ainsley?  I miss going to see her." 

As The Internet promised, things have gotten...easier?  Or, less hard?  When I think of Ainsley, I rarely think of her last gasps for breath (which haunted me for months, quite honestly).  I think of my favorite thing - leaving a long day of work and peeking my head around the corner of her hospital room to see her see me.  You might think that, seeing so many people all day every day would confuse her, but she knew her mommy and daddy.  Her face LIT UP when we got there.  Even if she was sick she was always happy to see us.

Six days before she died.
There was a group of nurses at her door cracking up at her.
 

It is strange, having some distance from her death.  The trach and vent and g-tube that got to be so common to me now seem so foreign.   I knew she was a very sick girl and we were always pretty realistic about that, but now that I look back at it?  It looks unnatural. 

Which sounds stupid because, duh, it isn't "natural" for your kid to breathe through tubes hooked up to her throat.  But we were so used to it - I would pick her up and play with her and hold her up in the air like Super Ainsley without a second thought.  When I looked at her I only saw her and never noticed the medical stuff.   When I look at her pictures now, I see all the tubing and it makes me feel bad that she had to go through all of it.

When we were in the PICU, one of our nurses came to tell us something that another family told her.  They said that they were coming into the unit for the first time and they were scared out of their minds.  And they looked over as they walked past our room and there was our gap-toothed, chubby, trach-vent baby, splashing in the tub and smiling and laughing.  And even though they had a very sick child, they could not help but pause and smile.

THAT was Ainsley.

Bath time: her favorite.

It was Ainsley and Evelyn's second birthday and my friends decided that it was cause for celebration.  The same friends who came without question when the twins were just born and I didn't want to be alone.  The same friends who organized a fundraiser for us.  The same friends who brought me water at calling hours as we greeted a never-ending line of people who came to remember Ainsley and Evelyn.

They are good people.

On Ainsley and Evelyn's second birthday, I went to a Disco Dance Party.   You cannot watch kids jump around and dance and be sad at the same time.

Happy Woulda/Coulda/Shoulda been second birthday to my twin girls, Ainsley Laura and Evelyn Cecille.  Always celebrated, always missed, and never ever forgotten.

Happy New Year!

I've been horrible about blogging. My excuses are lame - crappy sleeping baby, home project, busy schedule.

Next week will be better! Until then, I will be trying to sleep train a baby, exercise, and weighing my baked fries.

Oh, the joys of trying to be less fat.