I remember not too long ago when A 20oz. Coke may or may not have been enough soda to quench my thirst. Now, I’m devoted to a healthy lifestyle. It’s not like, “No, I can’t drink soda anymore,” but “hmm, 8oz. of sugary goodness is quite enough.” It’s weird. My body WANTS to eat and live and be healthy.
I’ve recently found myself just overwhelmed with work. (Housework as well as design work.) We are coming up on Bruce’s first birthday and it has occurred to me how much is happening that is going undocumented because I just don’t have time to stop for a second and make a note of it. For example, Gran found his first teeth a week before her wedding, on 4/20/13, but I don’t remember whether it was the top or the bottom that first appeared. I believe it was the top. I wonder if I wrote it down somewhere. He’s getting so big, and I feel like I am missing it.
He eats everything now. Now he has about 6 teeth, two lower and four on top. We go to Chipotle about once a week and he gets his own cheese quesadilla. He eats some of the rice and beans, too. And holy crap, he went koo koo banana crackers for a bean burrito from Taco Bell on Saturday. A couple of weeks ago, he started sucking through a straw. I think that was a little bit before my birthday at the end of August. He gives hilariously sweet kisses on demand. He blows kisses using the back of his hand. He loves to talk (although incoherent), and loves to laugh. When we pull into the driveway and turn off the car, he says, “Uh! Uh!” in a way that is imitating Jasmine’s bark. Speaking of Jasmine, he sneaks her food at every opportunity. At his high chair, it’s basically, “one for me, and one for you.” We are trying to get him to walk or at least stand by himself, but he can’t be bothered with it, and would rather get down and start crawling. He kind of does this “Alligator Roll” when you do try to help him walk, in which he just spins and falls on the ground trying to get away from you.
Before I forget, Gran found the newest two teeth when we were in Charleston for Scott and Laura Baldino’s wedding.
I pulled Bruce’s blankets out of the dryer last night and threw them into the playpen, but mostly at his face. He nuzzled them, started sucking on his ring and middle fingers and curled up. He didn’t go to sleep, but he looked like he was certainly enjoying himself.
Some stuff still has yet to sink in. I can’t believe he’s normal, healthy and that we have a long and bright future ahead of us as a family. The time tables and notes about when he ate and how much for the first few months are still sitting on my bathroom sink. Feels like yesterday we were feeding and pumping and up all nighting. I miss the tinyness, but I love the personality that he has developed. He’s pretty special. I can’t believe we’re a year into this adventure. I was looking at baby pictures of him, I mean BABY baby pictures. I can’t believe how quickly he’s become a little boy.
I’m so excited about this that I’m downright giddy.
I’ve been cooking it up since Bruce’s first trip to Disney World in December. I have no idea how many times I’ve been to Disney World. I wanted to commemorate and remember each of Bruce’s trips. When he’s 10, I want him to be able to say, “I’ve been exactly — times.”
Pictures are great, and we take a picture of Bruce on Gaston’s chair each time. But you know, pictures are hard to display in large quantities. It’ll be tough to have something cute but unfinished or not full. Not to mention, at any moment Disney could pull Gaston’s chair. It may be a while, but they could decide to refurbish Gaston’s Tavern anytime. What happens when we have 38 pictures of him in one spot then the spot disappears? Plus, we don’t make it to Magic Kingdom, or any one spot, every trip.
At any rate, here’s a shameless picture of the most adorable kid in the village sitting in Gaston’s chair. Awwww.
So, I need something that will never be inaccessible. I need something that will be as cute on his first trip as it is on his 50th trip. Whatever it is, one has to look as good as one hundred.
I started looking at creative guest books. I kept coming back to a tree with thumbprint leaves. How can I Disnify this idea?
BOOM BABY.
Pretty self-explanatory. I drew Carl and Ellie’s house. We add a balloon for each trip as soon as we get back, using Bruce’s fingerprint. Whether the trip is 1 day or 10, it gets one balloon. It’s been sitting on my desk in pieces since December, but last night I decided that I’m tired of having so many projects up in the air (HAAAAAA, no pun intended). I bought a frame and painted the background. The balloons and house are gingerly glued to the background so that if I do run out of space, eventually, I can pull it all apart and glue it onto a new bigger background.
I am so ecstatic! It’s so cute!
This is on a bag of Lays. Really? Farm-fresh, huh? No preservatives or artificial flavors AND Gluten free?!
It must be healthy!
Just the fact that they went there irritates the crap out of me. People fall for it, I’m sure. And if potato chips, notoriously associated with fat and lazy couch potatoes, can say that much, then what does that say about everything else in the grocery store?!
So close to being out of the 230s forever. So close. 232.2. The dress I wore to Erika’s wedding is big on me. It’s not potato sack big, but it’s definitely, “hmm, this isn’t as flattering as I recall” big. The dress that I wore to my parents’ wedding (MY PARENTS’ WEDDING!!!!) is also a little on the roomy side. It fits, and I’m wearing it to a wedding this weekend. It’s comfortable, not huge. However, the dress that I wore to Will and Jamie’s wedding fits, and it didn’t always. Woot!
omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg… this is happening.
That’s just diet. (Not dieting. Not temporarily restricting my calories, but deciding to change what I habitually eat as a person, and what we eat as a family, to food instead of “food products.”) Imagine if I had also been running all this week.
Tom is on day 3 of a 3 day juice fast. We checked his blood pressure last night and it is alarmingly high. I am hoping that if he can lose about 25 lbs. it will start to work itself out. But I don’t know, his dad is in the ideal bodyweight range and he has high blood pressure.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”
― Hippocrates
Did you know that while the weight limit of a bouncy castle is 800 lbs, it’s limited to 160 lbs per individual? I’d like to be able to bounce in a bouncy castle someday.
I had a very happy birthday week. When I left Charlotte and headed towards Charlottesville for Labor Day, my weight was at an all-time low of 232.8. (Well, all-time so far in this new weight loss journey. Obviously, I’ve been that weight before.) I got on the scale at my Dad’s house at some point at it said 239.something. I assumed it was wrong. I was feeling like I must be 230 when I weighed in the last time at his house at 237. When I got home, I was still around 236. Today, I am 235. Man. Three pounds. Do you know how hard it was to get to 232? Tom brought up a valid point, that I’m forever out of the 240s. I remember dancing between 238 and 241 and hating myself. I tell you what, 232-235 doesn’t feel much better.
I read somewhere that when our ancestors felt the stress of famine, or winter, or a big sabertooth tiger, they would eat as part of their body’s reaction. Nowadays, we have different stresses. No famine. (That’s for sure.) Things like deadlines affect our bodies much like the sabertooth, and our subconscious is like, “Ah! Stress! We may not survive! Pack on calories! Survive! Survive! Survive!”
I’m sure you think it’s bullcrap. I did. Until today. Today, I am stressing and I just want to eat. I had a lot of cake over the past 3 days, but now the cake is gone. So, hopefully we can get back on track. I feel so stressed. The house is a wreck. I MUST finish some illustrations and I’m just not feeling motivated. I’ve got to find time to jog at some point. It’s Wednesday! I haven’t jogged at all this week! We bought a piece of furniture from World Market and the doors don’t close the way they’re supposed to. I spent a whole day putting it together, all for the final piece, the door, to not fit properly. I wasted a whole day that I should have spent illustrating!
There’s nothing to do about that now but sigh and move on. I have to take the thing back to World Market, because I’m not keeping a messed up one, and probably put another one together. I guess that doesn’t have to happen today, or even this week. So, I need to let that go.
I also can’t find my very expensive Nikon. I thought it was in the truck for a long time. Then, I assumed I took it to Easter in Virginia, but I didn’t have it to take pictures. I never had that “AH!” moment when I realized that I left it in a cab or something. We had it when we went to get Bruce’s picture taken with the Easter Bunny. That’s the last time I remember having it. I hope beyond hope that it’s at my parents’ house, but no one has seen it. I’m devastated. The loss keeps me up at night and the sleep depravation = more stress.
My plan is to be 225 by Bruce’s party on 9/28. 215 by Halloween would be nice. 205 by Thanksgiving would feel spectacular. And while we’re setting goals, lets see what we can do about being under 200 by Christmas, 195 to be specific.
I’m going to see if I can get the scale down to 229 by Sunday. I just have to lose the pounds I accidentally put back on with cake and then 3 more. I already feel things starting to settle back down. I ate out for lunch today with my Great Aunt Sara Beth, so there’s no reason for me to go out and have a big sit-down meal. A few smoothies should do the trick, fill me with healthy veggies, and motivate me to stay motivated.
That La Kid 