Vacation Replay

My vacation was split pretty equally into two parts: actual vacation and consignment. I enjoyed every last bit of it though and hated going back to work Monday. Only having to make it as far as my basement helps a lot though.

Anyway, this was our first vacation where we didn’t have an automatic house sitter, and it made us a bit nervous—Hub more so than me. He shut off the water before we left and unplugged things like a crazy person. I was more worried about the cats, but I knew they would be fine for 2 nights without us. My aunt took the dog, so dropping her off was an extra step in our prep, but no big deal overall. In all though, things went very smoothly.

We were on the road by 6am and made it to Cedar Point by about 10:30. I fed the kids an early lunch as we were coming up the causeway so we wouldn’t have to be bothered with food for a while. It looked like it might rain on and off all day, but except for a 15 minute downpour after dinner, the weather was just right. We never realized how many kids things there are to do there; Hub and I only ever went on roller coasters. But we all had a fabulous time.













Monday we took a boat out to the Lake Erie islands, which was kind of a bust. There wasn’t too much to do, but we made the most of it for a few hours before heading back.








Then we checked out some caves.





We were home by mid afternoon on Tuesday, but it really was the perfect little trip. Family fun, and nostalgia combined. We can’t wait to do it again next year!

I totally had to look up how to spell culottes

• I started writing a post the other day about how our summer vacation was going (well), considering the changes in our household, and went on to talk about how I’m keeping the kids busy, and decided that I hated the tone of it. It was more of a narration of our daily minutiae than anything that was helpful or even interesting. So! Summer is good! The kids have chores! And I print out crap to help them keep their minds sharp! And sometimes they go to camp! 4 weeks ‘til school starts!
• I am ridiculously excited for our 3 day mini-vacation that is coming up in less than 2 weeks. I’m sure the kids won’t give a flying fuck when I show them the place Hub proposed to me, but I am nostalgic just the same. And we are indulging Liv’s boat obsession with a ferry ride and a day long trip to one of the Lake Erie islands and she is going to die…just die! I cannot wait.
• The dog will be getting a vacation of her own while we are away by staying with my godmother who has 3 dogs. Haley just loves other dogs, (and cats too, but ours will not play with her) and if she doesn’t have a heart attack from all the excitement, she is going to have the time of her life.
• We had the girls’ big birthday bash this past weekend and it was a great time—though I don’t think I sat down even once over the course of 2 days. I was lucky to have my sister-in-law in town to help me get ready (read: chop fruit and vegetables), and generally keep me sane. We’ll be even luckier if she follows through and moves home as planned in September.
• I was going to share a few pictures, but I am going to leave you with just one. This is my, Lucy’s and SIL’s reaction to an interesting outfit composed of a short sleeved button down shirt, vest, a neck tie on a string of pearls and belted culottes. I thought we kept our opinion in check…but the photo tells otherwise. HA.

Ok, I guess I did sit down...

Missing (?)

Do you ever feel like something is missing?

Hub and I have all but permanently decided that we are done expanding our family. We are more than 3 years past having a newborn. This is the longest I have not been pregnant since we started having kids. We have 2 more years of pre-school before all of the children will be in (free) school. We have a great family dynamic. I am honestly and truly ok with our decision to be done now. As much as I love to snuggle a newborn baby, I am ok with my time of middle of the night feedings and diapers and having to pay attention to someone every last second of the day being O-V-E-R. I like the independence that has come with having older kids. I like it a lot, actually.

A few months ago I had a dream. I was very pregnant. We were expecting twin boys. The kids were a bit older, but everything in the dream was much as it is now. We were happy, with 2 of everything lined up just so, just waiting for our boys to join us. I’ve had dreams about being pregnant before, dreams that have stuck me with a brief feeling of longing, dreams that have made me wonder if we’ve made the wrong decision…but the feelings are always fleeting. Always. This time though has been different.

Hard as I try, I cannot shake the feeling that regardless of not necessarily wanting to have another baby that I am supposed to get pregnant again. I am supposed to have (at least)another baby. I am supposed to be someone else’s Mama. And I don’t really know what to do with this nagging feeling. I don’t know why it won’t go away even though I am mostly in the camp of no more babies.

Is my head messing with me? Are my hormones messing with me? Am I being spoken to from a higher power? That is the thing. I have no idea. No idea at all about any of this. I thought that maybe typing it out would help me make sense of it, but…not so much.

How about you? Do you ever have a feeling about how things are supposed to be, compared to how they actually are, or how you want them to be?

THREE!!

Today, Banana, you are 3. Three years old.

I am having a hard time grasping how we have gone from this:


To this:


If I wondered even for a second three years ago, just how you were going to fit in to our family, it was all for nothing. You are the sunshine to all of us. To your brother and sister, a reason to be silly—they will do anything to make you happy even when you are the world’s biggest piss pot---and trust me, you are. To your daddy who you get to buy you Tim Bits on the way home from school, even though it’s dinner time and you promise you won’t tell mom. And to me—you are my forever baby and as much as you ask, I will never stop calling you baby even though you are big.

You are truly something else—you call grown-ups by their first names and you get away with it. No Miss or Aunt or Uncle for you. You interact with grown-ups like you are one yourself. In fact, your teacher (Miss) Jamie says she misses you when you’re not there because she doesn’t have a grownup to talk to.

You have no fear, going on all the big slides at the playground and riding all the big kid rides at the amusement park. You always tell us exactly what is on your mind, and even if you didn’t—we would see it on your face.

You still insist that your name is Hannah Banana Lastname. This is how you introduce yourself to people. And if I happen to call you Hannah Lynne, you immediately correct me. You make big eyes and tell us “these are my maaaaagical eyes” and you tell us what you see. Your grandma is your very best friend. This pleases me, because I know she needs you.

I don’t know what else to say, Baby. You are one of the 3 greatest things to have ever happened to me and I love you to the moon.

Let’s stop growing up now, ok?

Love-
Mama

NOT! An itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini

Last year we went to a pool party at my godmother’s house and I “forgot my bathing suit”. I wasn’t comfortable with my body and I wasn’t interested in putting it on display for various layers of my family. My parents took the kids in the pool, but it wasn’t very fun for them, and honestly, the kids would have preferred for Hub or me to be in the water anyway. So I decided at that point that I wasn’t going to have the kids miss out because of my insecurities. This summer there would be swimming.

As it happens, we’ve been put in the way of some upcoming activities that will require me to wear a swim suit. Not the usual summer vacation where we don’t know anyone, but amusement park trips with my brother, the beach with some friends and possibly a family camping trip. I know that I won’t get by without going in the water, especially because Liv is at a point where she wants to hang off of me, even in our 2.5 foot pool in the back yard. So I resigned myself to this fact of public swimsuit wearing. I’ve accepted it, and I’m moving on.

Now the swimsuit I’ve worn for the past few years is ok—in its one-piece with skirt old ladyish way. I wanted something a little more supportive, and a little more versatile. I couldn’t wear the existing suit under things because of the giant skirt. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about one-pieces, but they don’t do much in the way of supporting the girls. So I set out to casually look for some bathing suits—planning to do the shopping online and be done with it. Nothing seemed right though. I didn’t want a halter that tied at my neck, I didn’t want my whole thigh exposed…you get the idea. I was certain I wouldn’t find anything, but decided to look at the suits while I had the girls in Target on Saturday morning.

I was surprised with the selection—lots of nice interchangeable tops and bottoms. I saw a skirted bottom that I knew could work and decided to buy it even if I couldn’t find a top. And then I saw it—a black and white racer back top, that was fitted and had cups for support up top, but was looser and kind of ruched on the sides. A bit longer as well. I looked for and found an XL and I was sold. There was no time for trying it on, but I remembered the racer back Speedo suit I had in high school—mind you when I was a twig, but still had a need for support—and figured I’d be ok.

I put off trying it on when we got home. I was afraid of hating it. I was afraid it would give me back boobs. I was afraid of a lot of things. Eventually though, I did put it on and checked myself out in the mirror. The result was….not bad. There is no disguising the fact that I am overweight. And I think the fact that I get that now is helping me immensely. For my body type, the suit was perfect. I had nice cleavage and I had some flow in the belly region. My whole ass wasn’t hanging out; the skirt offered a lot of coverage, while still being modern. It was weird, but I genuinely liked the way I looked in the suit.

It was only when I decided to take the tags off that I realized the top portion of the suit was actually a maternity top. Nevermind that I’m not sure what kind of pregnant belly would fit in there, but UGH! Maternity!! This didn’t do a lot for my self esteem. Here I thought I’d found something perfect for “my body type”. It stung a little bit to know that my body type=looks pregnant but is not and has not been for 3 years. The Twitters helped to talk me down though, and I’m still keeping it. It is a good suit with good fit. Nobody will know the difference anyway I’m sure.

The rational part of me knows that nobody cares what I look like in a bathing suit. I know this I know this I know this! And I think I will actually wear it this coming weekend and I think I will wear it proudly.

In which I somehow tell you my pant size

Hub has lost about 50lbs since January. “I’ve basically lost an entire Lucy”, he told me smugly last night, “Could you imagine carrying her around all day every day?” I roll my eyes smug with my own knowledge of irrelevant facts about our children. “She weighs 60lbs. You haven’t lost her yet.”

Score. Ok, not really.

I want to be happy for Hub. I want to be thrilled that with hard(ish) work, he’s really done it. He’s reduced his triglycerides by two thirds and is probably healthier than he’s ever been. Mostly though, I am pissed off about it all the time. Everything I’d told him for years about whole grains and carbs and sugars is now The Bible because HE thought of it. Right. Perhaps if I had been hitting the drive thru twice a day for 10 years grabbing a doughnut or 2 with my coffee then I too could drop 50lbs by just stopping and changing my eating habits. But I’ve never done that. Just eating some damned wheat bread is not going to help me.

Aside from the probably hundreds of studies (none of which I am familiar with, so…) that have shown this, it is quite obvious that men and women are very different when it comes to losing or gaining weight. I have heard so many stories of husbands who need to lose 20lbs and just stop drinking beer for a few weeks and lose the 20 and more. Men are different! It is science! It is also infuriating.

I will say that after starting to work from home, when there was no longer an endless buffet of potluck lunches, birthday and anniversary cakes and milkshake runs at my disposal, that I lost 15lbs without doing anything else. You may think “But Saly? Weren’t you going to the gym???” Well, no. I wasn’t. I decided that since I was working from home there was no reason for me to get up at 5am to go any longer. I could go any time! My lunch! Mid afternoon! The possibilities were endless, except that they weren’t as my calendar filled up on a daily basis. So gradually I dropped from 4 times a week to 2-3 and then to never. And I sit here knowing that it is ridiculous. Working from home has saved me something like 10 hours a week. I talked myself up and started going back at the end of April and then I traveled to California for work where I was told I had to go back to the office for a while, and from there everything went back downhill.

I couldn’t very well go to the gym when I had to be in the office, could I? And I couldn’t turn down my team members’ offers of milkshakes and lunches out and of course the weekly ice cream parties. I marveled at how loosely my work clothes were fitting, my size 22 pants nearly falling off of me. During the 6 weeks that I was in the office, I put 5lbs back on.

Thankfully I am back home. I’ve bought shorts for the summer in a size 20 and they are a bit loose. Large, yes. But not a 22 which is the biggest size I’ve ever worn. I’ve dropped the 5lbs just by getting back in to my home habits. I’ve been to the gym once with the excuse of “The Holiday Weekend” keeping me away this week.

Long story short, Hub’s weight loss has not been about turning in to a buff hottie. It’s been about his health. His doctor told him to change his habits or he would be dead, and he did it. He talks to the kids about why he’s doing it and why we don’t keep cookies in the house anymore and why their lunch is made on different bread now. The kids know that part of the reason Grandpa died was because he never quit smoking, even though the doctors told him to quit many times. They correlate that to what Hub is doing, and they get it. Hub is doing all of this so he is healthy and here for them for a very long time.

So how come I am not? I feel like someone has slapped me in the face and I’ve woken up. I am lazy. Why do I get to say that it’s too hard? Why do I get to be annoyed with Hub for making it look so damned easy? I don’t really have that right. He’s found what works for him and he’s doing it—so good for him! Really!! This is the time for me to find what works and to do it too. I started by calling my endocrinologist for a lab slip because I haven’t had my meds checked in a very long time. In fact, the rude receptionist who is The Reason I Haven’t Called, pointed out that it has been 2 years since I was last in the office. One hard thing out of the way, right? We’ve found that operating on a family schedule really helps with chores and keeping household things running smoothly, so I am going to try scheduling my gym time. And it will have to be in the early mornings. I know this. And the hard part? I will actually have to get up and go, and not phone it in when I get there and just ride the bike. Finally—I need to give up my favorite coffee drinks for a while. I drink it black at home, but when I am out I love nothing more than stopping for a creamy iced coffee. Once in a while for a treat will be fine later on, but no more to the “I am in my car and therefore DESERVE an iced coffee”.

So. 3 hard things. 4, if you count me telling you my pant size. I am going to work on pushing myself out of my comfort zone a little bit, maybe by accomplishing 3 hard things a week. I think it might work. And if it doesn’t, I need to keep trying until I find something that does. I think I give up too easily—so I need to figure out a way to stop myself from doing that. Anyone want to scream in my face to get my lazy butt up and to the gym? I don’t know—I’m going to do it somehow. You might not hear me gloating that I lost a whole Lucy, but maybe somewhere down the line I’ll be able to say that I’ve lost a Liv. Or that I’ve at least reached my pre-(1st)pregnancy weight.

Or maybe I’ll just take to my bed like the mom from Gilbert Grape.

Ok, not really. Wish me luck.

Bullets, of course

• The holiday weekend was nice. Soooo nice. I worked on Friday like a sucker, but did take Tuesday off to make it a nice 4 days off. It was glorious. The weather was good and the kids were decent. I wish it happened like that more often. We saw fireworks shows on Saturday and on Sunday and just watched the (illegal) displays in our neighborhood on Monday. My parents were here for a barbeque, we saw Hub’s family, and spent time alone just the 5 of us. I couldn’t have imagined a better weekend. We needed it.
• Last week I convinced my phone carrier to give me an early upgrade discount because my phone was a flaming piece of poo. It arrived after I’d waited the whole long weekend with a barely functioning phone on Tuesday afternoon. As I unpacked it, the dog was VERY interested in the plastic and as I went to put the phone together, I noticed that the battery was missing. I knew it was there a minute ago….and then I saw it in a chewed up heap on the floor. The dog ate my battery. I cannot believe the freaking dog ate my battery!! Luckily I was able to get a new one through Amazon that was much cheaper than going through the phone carrier, and with prime shipping, it came last night, but MAN was I ticked off!! What kind of dog chews up a battery. I left it on the kitchen table to ask Hub if we needed to do anything special to throw it out—imagine my surprise when I found the cat up there licking it. Lesson learned. Cell phone batteries are apparently quite tasty for pets.
• Our garden is coming along quite nicely. We have a few pea pods and the start of some hot peppers. I don’t know what it is about looking at my growing garden that gives me such great satisfaction, but boy it sure does. I used to think that the people who said gardening relaxed them were crazy. But I get it now. And with this being the first year we’ve had flowers in the bed out front, I am quite happy every time I see a new bloom. I may officially be old now.
• I am getting used to my hair cut, which turned out to be shorter than I wanted. It is very cute when I blow it our straight and part it far on my left and accent it with a headband. I’ve also figured out a way to make it look so-so without drying it by letting it just spring up like it does instead of combing it straight. I kind of scrunch it while I’m doing whatever as it dries. It looks somewhat intentional.
• We are planning our big party in the park for the girls' birthday and I am starting to get nervous, as always. People really look forward to our party (so I'm told), so I feel a lot of pressure to make it AWESOME. First though, I need to make and send invites. Like, today. Sigh.
• I’ve decided that Lucy is the only person who is allowed to take my picture going forward. She is the only one who ever gets a decent shot of me. Here are 3 photos taken of me on Saturday as we waited for fireworks, each taken by a different child:

Taken by Liv:


Taken by Bud (this was the point I told him to GIVE ME THE CAMERA):


Taken by my favoriteLucy: