Hiding in My Bathroom from My 2yr Old

When we designed our ensuite bathroom a couple of years ago, I had a beautiful and peaceful place in mind. The paint, the tiles, the heated floor - it all came together nicely. If I had known I would be spending quite this much time in there, I would have installed a TV.

Don't be rude, let me explain.

Our darling almost 3yr old son is in a very whiny phase right now. Made worse by the fact he is sick and hasn't been out of the house for a week, he has taken to climbing into our bed in the mornings and starting to whine and/or cry for something the second we say anything. It could be juice, milk, Cheerios, a movie he wants to watch, but he needs it NOW.

We are trying very hard to be good, firm parents, teaching him that he doesn't get what he wants by whining or crying. We are also working on teaching him to say "May I have some ________ please" instead of "WANT ______!" Given our trials with sleep training him (twice), we are now experienced hard asses and will not give in under any circumstances. This has led to numerous timeouts, which are always a nice way to start the day.

Sometimes the thing he says he wants is me, but even when I'm right beside him he is still crying and kicking, usually for the next item in the long line of demands. The endless string of "MUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMY!" is slowly driving me to drink and I feel 6am is just too early to start drinking, even if it is 5 o'clock somewhere.

This is where the bathroom comes in. Perhaps not the most mature of tactics, but one morning at the brink of insanity, I vaulted out of bed and into the ensuite, locking the door behind me. The first time I did it, I was faced with a "Now what?" realization. It's not like I was ensconced in a soundproof oasis of calm. I could still very clearly hear him screaming on the other side of the door. I turned on the fan and had a shower, but nothing could drown him out. (I can only imagine what Mr. Awesome must have been going through, pretending to sleep 5 feet away.) I opened the door and agreed to come out when, and only when, the little man stopped crying. Miraculously, he did indeed stop.

I have had to return to my hiding place only once again, but this time I went prepared with netbook in hand. The next time we remodel a bathroom, I will definitely consider installing a TV. Or at the very least, an escape hatch.

Wardrobe Detox

Since starting mat leave in October, I have had no reason whatsoever to put on my work clothes. A few weeks ago I was having a sluggish day and not feeling great about myself. I had a few minutes of kid-free time, so I decided to try some things on that I hadn't worn in a while, assuming it would make me feel better if they now were too big.

The first few pieces were surprisingly roomy, and I immediately felt better. In fact, almost everything was too big, but in varying degrees. This led me to try on some of the clothes I'd been saving from my slightly thinner days. Some fit, some not quite yet.

What began was a very strange reflection on the last few years, as I clearly remember when I got these items, when I wore them with certain outfits and how I felt about myself in them. It made me think.

You can be happy with yourself at any size, and that's great if you truly are happy with yourself. The thing is, I wasn't happy with how I looked or felt. I used to use new clothes to feel better about myself. Finding a new shirt/sweater/pair of pants at Lane Bryant or Addition-Elle that made me feel slightly slimmer made my day. It was all in the cut and hang of the garment, but I was temporarily believed I was slimmer. This made me happy.

I love my husband (who has requested that from now on I refer to him in this blog as Mr. Awesome), we have two healthy, happy kids and I love my job. Life is great, but until recently I wasn't truly happy with ME. No magic shirt could give me the self image I needed, no matter HOW many times I went shopping!

I'm happier now with myself than I ever have been, but it's not because I look better than I have for a while. I think it's because I am taking action to feel better.

Yes, in September, when I go on that enormous shopping spree (yahoo!) in preparation to return to work, I will feel better about myself in the clothes I buy. But not because I have discovered a magic pair of pants that make you look slimmer than you actually are. I will feel good about the person inside the clothes. In fact, I already do.

My Current Workout Mix

This is the mix, with occasional tweaking, that I am currently using to work out. It's what keeps me going when I have to push the treadmill to incline 10, or that irritating perfectly proportioned gym addict walks by to flirt with yet another beefcake (I SWEAR, she is there EVERY time I go, no matter how I switch up my schedule. Maybe she's stalking me...).

It's an eclectic mix, but it works for me. Black Eyed Peas and David Guetta are my two current favourites.

Gonna Make You Sweat - C and C Music Factory
I Like To Move It - Reel 2 Real
I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
When Love Takes Over (Radio Edit) - David Guetta f. Kelly Rowland
Red Alert (Jaxx Radio Mix) - Basement Jaxx
Get the Party Started - Pink
Sexyback - Justin Timberlake
Can't Get You Out Of My Head - Kylie Minogue
Call On Me (Radio Edit) - Eric Prydz
Push It - Salt N Pepa
It's My Life - Bon Jovi
The Longest Road feat. Lissie - Morgan Page

Am I the victim of a cruel joke?

As I've said before, I have never been athletic. I've wimped out of almost every remotely athletic activity that has ever come across my path. So what, pray tell, am I doing working out (in some capacity) almost every day?? Either the post-pregnancy hormones have done a number on my brain without my knowledge, or I must have fallen victim to a trick somewhere along the way. Must investigate who is to blame...

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for tricks if they help get the job done. If I fancy a snack, I have my cupboard stocked with a variety of 2 point/Weight Watcher legal snacks - Thinsations Chocolate Covered Pretzels (my new fave), microwave popcorn, Cadbury Thins, Fibre One bars...yes, and sometimes even a banana. I've made myself a motivational journal with clippings from magazines saying things like "Get Healthy" or "Lose Your Belly" that I can look at if I'm feeling particularly sluggish.

One of my "tricks" is watching Biggest Loser every Tuesday night. I find it motivating and inspiring, and my best workouts are always Wednesday mornings. I picture Bob yelling at the contestants for touching the handles on the treadmill and I work that much harder. With the Olympics preempting new episodes for the past 2 weeks, I've even watched old episodes online to keep myself going! You'd think as a marketing professional I would be immune to marketing campaigns and tactics, but I'm the biggest sucker of them all. I now own 3, count them, THREE Biggest Loser workout DVDs, and the Biggest Loser Workout Program book. I'm a booklet-carrying member of Weight Watchers and I own 2 different Weight Watchers cookbooks. (All of these purchases could also be blamed, incidentally, on my other weakness - Costco.)

A few weeks ago, a weird thing began to happen. I actually started to like working out. I now get upset if I can't fit in a workout for a couple of days, and that is SO NOT ME. My iPod Shuffle was dead when I got to the gym this morning. God forbid I should workout without my specially crafted workout mix. The old me would have given up, maybe done a few weights and come home to total inactivity. Instead I came home, holed myself up in the bedroom away from the prying eyes of my husband and 2yr old, and did the Last Chance Workout DVD from The Biggest Loser. Thank you, Jillian Michaels!

I have never been a good cook and because I cooked so infrequently, my culinary confidence was in the garbage disposal. Needing to know the points values for all my meals meant I needed to take control of the cooking in our house. I now cook 6 out of 7 meals each week and, get this, I actually enjoy it. My cookbook purchases have resulted in me becoming used to a new healthier way of cooking, and it's actually made me a better cook.

Looks like the joke's on me. With all the tricks I've employed for getting myself to the gym and to eat according to the Weight Watchers program, I've actually become a healthier, happier person. Who would ever have thought that??

Mystery solved. I'm the one to blame and I couldn't be happier.

Confession: My House is a Mess & My Kid Watches TV

I was reading a post from Pampers and Pinot called "Supermom is a Myth". It made me feel so much better to know that other moms go through what I go through on any given day. Somewhere, at some point, I was led to believe that moms should be able to do it all - keep the house clean, feed the family with nutritious meals, entertain the kids with educational activities, all while working a full time job. This is an absolute lie. People pay professionals thousands of dollars to make it appear true, but no one woman can do this on her own and still maintain any sort of life balance.

Now, while on mat leave, I've been able to master the nutritious meals component of this absurd reality. Thanks to Weight Watchers, Hungry Girl and a myriad of other online sources, I actually do cook my family very healthy meals. What will happen to this tradition once I'm back at work and coming home at 5pm when the kids have to be in the bath by 6:15 is anyone's guess. But meals are really where my accomplishments end.

My house is a disaster. There are toys everywhere, dirty dishes on the counter, a pile of laundry in the bedroom, piles of papers to be attended to "one day"... and believe me, this is all not for lack of trying. With the addition of our 4 month old daughter and my almost 3yr old's new potty training adventure, LAUNDRY NEVER STOPS. I am wearing a groove in the hallway from all the trips back and forth to the laundry room. The dishes never seem to reach that magic point where ALL the dishes are clean at once. I don't actually believe that point exists.

My husband, God bless him, works from home. This is not always as fabulous as it might seem from the outset. Yes, he is often there to take over when Mommy is about to lose her mind, or if I'm busy feeding the baby when our son announces he has to pee right then and there. On the other hand, as a self-employed computer consultant, his work could happen at any time, whenever a client needs him. He doesn't have standard days off each week to take the kids while I run around like a madwoman cleaning the house. There is no consistency to when I might have a precious pocket of time to clean the bathroom. As a result, I feel like I'm doing housework all day long, running to switch over laundry or wipe down a counter while the little man is otherwise occupied with his toys or something on (gasp) TV.

Yes, he watches TV. Admittedly, he probably watches too much TV. He also goes to preschool, swimming lessons, plays outside, goes to the park, goes for walks, colours, plays with his HotWheels, plays in forts we build...if throwing in "Cars" or "Up" for the 7 billionth time means I might get a few minutes of downtime, then by God I'm going to do it.

Judge me if you will. I'm sure the nice people at Disney/Pixar think I'm just swell.

22lbs down, 28 to go.

Our second child, our daughter, was born on October 23, 2009. I have always been overweight but just couldn't commit to losing the 50lbs needed until after the pregnancies were done. I couldn't bear the thought of putting in all the work, only to gain back 30lbs while expecting. By the time she was 3 weeks old, I was itching to get started.

I'm on mat leave until October 2010 and I intend to reach my goal weight before I return to work. The plan is actually to reach goal by August, so I have 2 months of maintenance and figuring out new routines before I go back. I'm a creature of routine, and I need to know when I'm going to work out, what I'm going to do, what I'm going to eat, etc. Before I'm back at work 35 hrs a week and tempted by all the fast food outlets and goodies in the office kitchen, I'd better have been living this new way for a while!

I started Weight Watchers on December 18, 2009. So far I have lost 22lbs, and I'm feeling good about the lifestyle changes. There is no way in hell I would ever succeed at a program that imposed strict limitations that weren't realistic for the long term. WW makes sense to me, I've done it before, and now I'm finally in a place to make it last.

22lbs down, 28 to go!

The Boy Who Cried Pee

My son is The Boy Who Cried Pee. We began potty training about a month ago. At recommendations from friends, we went cold turkey on diapers, moving to underpants for everything except nighttime. I have to say, he's doing pretty well. With the occasional accident, he does do his business on the potty most of the time. He knows if he says "Go pee" then we whisk him away to the bathroom and sit with him until he's done, clapping and cheering at his accomplishments.

The problem is, sometimes he just wants the 3 minute visit and congratulations. He'll announce his desires and we'll rush to the loo, only to sit and wait for something that never comes. After about 5 of these in a day, I began to doubt his honesty, doing the math back to when he'd last been and what he'd consumed since. Is this something you want to risk? Not believing a toddler when he says he has to pee is a dangerous gamble.

I long for the day he'll actually go in there by himself and sit down on his own to get 'er done. But until that day comes, we still jump to attention the minute he even whispers those words. That is, with the exception of first thing in the morning. I know when he comes into our room first thing in the morning and claims he has to go, that he has in fact already been in his Pull-Up and is just trying to get me out of bed. I also know that the Pull-Up will hold while I grab a few more minutes of warmth under the covers. Yes, the Pull-Up might fail one day, but that is a gamble I'm willing to take at 6:00am.

I've Never Been a Journaler

I love notebooks. Pretty books of pretty pages wrapped in pretty paper. Blank pages just begging to be filled with profound thoughts and memories of my life. I tried. I tried valiantly. I tried repeatedly.

When I was 10 yrs old I got an "Annie" diary, complete with little gold lock and key. I completed five entries in five days and never wrote again. At least once a year until around age 20, I would discover the perfect notebook, the one that would finally inspire me to journal on a long term basis. Some never even saw pen touch paper. Some got as far as a week of dedicated writing and then shut forever. I got a travel diary for a 6-month NZ trip. I wrote religiously for the flight from Vancouver to Auckland, and for my first 2 days in Wellington. That was it. Thank God I took pictures.

For our first wedding anniversary, my husband and I decided to go with the traditional gift theme of paper. He bought me a very cool notebook made up of all kinds of different papers - maps, graph paper, envelopes, vellum. It is absolutely beautiful, and I just love it. The problem is, I didn't want to repeat history and use it for something pointless and then never look at it again. I didn't dare begin a journal that would inevitably get stuffed away in a box within the month. I kept it safe for 4 years, feeling guilty that I wasn't using his lovely gift. I only recently unearthed it to actually put it to use. It is now my fitness inspiration and motivation book, which I fill with inspirational statements cut out of magazines, short notes about significant achievements in my weight loss journey, and reminders of why I started my fitness quest in the first place. With no schedule for journal entries and no self-imposed strict format for how to fill up the book, I believe I may have found the perfect use for this book.

So why, when I am obviously HOPELESS at journalling, would I ever consider starting a blog? Well, as a mom of an almost 3 year old boy and an almost 4 month old daughter, life is filled with adventures, some happy and some that make me want to tear out what's left of my post-pregnancy hormonally challenged hair. Add to that the fact that I've decided to actually embark on and commit to a new healthy lifestyle (with the help of Weight Watchers). I am on a quest to lose 60lbs before I return to work in October, and I am NOT what you would call athletic. I love TV and I love food, so this is indeed a major life change! All these things come with a variety of pitfalls, so I figured I needed somewhere to vent. What better place than the interweb?? Somewhat anonymous and not as scary as a blank page on my nightstand.

I may never get a single reader, but then again, with my history, I may never write another post. :)