Confessions

Jay over at The Zero Boss challenged his readers today to post our confessions. I realize I do have a few:

- I haven't worked on my novel yet this week.

- I skipped my morning workout yesterday AND today.

- I ate two Entenmanns' Softee donuts at breakfast and another this afternoon.

- I lied and told my son there were no more powdered donuts, so I could eat the last one.

- I bitched at my husband the other night after we'd both had a long day (I did apologize soon after).

- My mom let me run out today to buy vitamins and I stopped in the toy store to do some impromptu Christmas shopping, making me quite late in returning (she didn't mention it, bless her).

- I've taken two pregnancy tests already this week, even though I'm not due until Sunday (hey, the package says you can take it four days early!).

- I just bought another package of three pregnancy tests.

- My husband asked me not to spend any money this week, but I spent $30 on vitamins, $14 on toys and $18 on pregnancy tests.

- I'm dreading watching the debate Thursday because Kerry will be there and words will come out of his mouth. My open mind is temporarily out-of-order.

Phew. I feel better. Now, where's that last donut?

Enough

At 2 ½, John has entered the height, I hope, of the terrible twos. Never a clingy child or a crier (except before we got him on acid reflux medicine), he has taken to crying for 45 minutes at a time, attaching himself to my leg so I have to drag him along to walk, and saying things like “I wanna hug!” and “Pick me up RIGHT NOW!” I wish I could make those words shake, the way my house does when John yells at full voice.

Last week, John carried on this way so long, preventing me from starting dinner or zoning out at my computer during his usual video, that I felt like I had a newborn again. Ah, pain has no memory, until you find yourself there again, in pain.

I know he isn’t in pain, because at all other times he’s fine. The perfect sweet treat, video or new person can wrest him from the crankies in two seconds flat. All of his teeth are in, he’s not running a fever. He just thinks I’m “his bitch.”

Now, I’m not fond of that term, but it’s the most accurate one I can find to describe his misguided concept of who I am in his life. When I give in and pick him up, he permits no sitting. “STAND UP! YOU STAND UP” he bellows, tears streaming, veins popping. He tolerates no bouncing, singing or swaying. “Don’t SHAKE me!” “Stop walkin’!” “Move your arm!” “Don’t PAT ME!”

And I say, “Enough, John, enough. Please, don’t you want to eat some M&Ms or watch some television? Don’t you want to get off of me?”

This drama has become such a regular feature of John’s post-nap day that Ben will throw himself in front of the staircase to prevent me from going up to wake him. “No, don’t wake John up. He’s so tired," he says, using his budding powers of persuasion. "He needs to rest just a little longer.” We may have a lawyer in the family.

Then Ben will try in vain to ensure that John wakes in a good mood. “John, come jump on the pillows with me!”

“No, I won’t.”

“We’re the firefighters puttin’ out the fire.”

“No, I’m NOT.” The crying starts.

“Can I come into the crib with you, John?”

“No, you can’t!” he wails.

“Mom, John’s crying again. Can you make him stop?” I wish I could. Ben has had enough, too.

An element of payback exists in this, since Ben was a clingy baby and toddler, so attached that as a new mom I could not manage to fix dinner, do the laundry or brush my teeth in a timely fashion. In those days, I didn’t believe kids under age 2 should watch any television (yes, that was a long, long time ago). So for Ben, it was all Momma, all the time.

My brother Mark, father of six children, would listen to me complain about Ben’s relentless focus on me, and how I couldn’t even cook dinner, and he’d say, “Don’t you get Sesame Street?”

“Yeah, but ...”

He humored my no-TV credo and offered a warning. “Enjoy it. Soon, you’ll miss the contact," he said, his tone turning wistful. "These days, I’m lucky if my kids will let me sit on the couch next to them.”

“Yeah, but Paige can babysit for you now, all of your kids are in school. You’re forgetting the pain of being saddled with needy babies,” I countered, believing I had about five years before Ben would look at me and say, “Mom, you go away now.” It only took about one year.

We had a rushed morning today, because Ben had a doctor appointment before preschool. With Murphy’s Law in full effect here, John, for whom morning is usually happy time, instead woke in his clingy, demanding mode. “I wanna hug,” he cried, pasted spread eagle against my legs. I picked him up, walked into the family room and flipped on Arthur at Ben’s request. I sat on the floor with John on my lap, grateful that he was permitting sitting today and getting engrossed in the video. I gave him a kiss on the head, then a kiss on the cheek, and maybe a few other kisses.

“No kissin’, Mom.” He said. “That’s nuff.”

“O.K., John,” I said. But of course, as parents know, it’s never enough.

Naked Potty Training

My 2 ½-year-old son, John, is almost potty trained. But only when he’s naked.

As soon as I put underpants on him, he pees. If I put a Pull-Up on him, he pees in that too, and poops the poop he’d been saving just for the occasion.

We didn’t plan to train him this way. His older brother, Ben, was in a troublesome, midwinter “must be naked” stage, and John followed suit. As you can imagine, immediate potty training ensued.

A few years before we had children, my husband and I got into a potty training discussion with another pre-baby couple, John and Terri. John said his mom trained him using the naked method. When the pee ran down his leg and onto the floor, toddler John was so dismayed that he promptly began peeing and pooping in the proper location.

“Why doesn’t everyone do that?” we all wondered aloud, in our smug, pre-baby way, thinking we knew jack about raising kids.

When our first son, Ben, was 2, neither my husband or I had the nerve to let him run around the house without a diaper. A vindictive, peeing cat and Ben’s first bout with the stomach flu had left us somewhat traumatized by bodily fluids.

By the time Ben turned 3, we were willing to try it, but Ben would not tolerate anything other than a snugly fastened diaper — no nakedness, no underwear, and positively no peeing on the potty. My training method went like this:

“Ben, come sit on the potty.”
“No!”
“C'mon, I’ll give you M&Ms.”
“I don’t want M&Ms!”
“Um, OK.”

This went on until one week before preschool started, when I realized, while packing for a trip to Lake Winnipesaukee, that “Ben’s not potty trained!” With typical rookie-parent naiveté, I had signed him up three years in advance at a non-Pull-Up-friendly preschool. In my first episode of utter maternal failure, my preoccupation with writing projects, errant babysitters and his 20-month-old brother meant that my first-born child would not be allowed to attend school!

So Ben got an emergency crash course in The Potty during our week at the lake.

Day 1: Pull-Ups (yes, unbelievably, he was still in diapers).
Day 2: Underwear, accompanied by whining, pleading and crying (mostly by Brian and me).

Within a few days, Ben was trained. He pooped his pants once, and I will never forget him yelling “I gotta poop!” and hopping on one foot out of the living room, his other leg up in the air and a large load bulging from his bottom.

John peed on the potty too during that fateful week, one year ago. But yet, he’s still not trained.

My mom swears that she potty trained all four of her children by age 2. I have challenged her on this, and she insists it’s true. Many women from that generation (age 60+) make this claim. But I’ve determined that their version of potty training consists of chasing the youngster around with a jar or potty chair and “catching” the pee or poop. I ask you, who really has been potty trained in this scenario?

Granted, with the advent of super-comfort, ultra-soft-n-dry disposable diapers, our generation has a less urgent need to potty train. Buying and throwing out disposable diapers is not nearly as labor intensive as trailing a 2 ½ year old, waiting for him to squat (and doing the ensuing laundry when you miss). But disposables do dent the budget, especially since I have a 4 year old who still wears two 50-cent heavy-duty disposables each night.

Yesterday we were home all day, and John did not have one accident. He also did not have any pseudo accidents, during which he pretends he’s a fireman putting out a fire (you know the drill). He even pooped on the potty without help from me, then gleefully said, “See? It looks like a snaaaake!”

But today, we had errands to run and spent lots of time in the car. So I put the Pull-Up on him (knowing he’d pee in his underwear), and he reverted to his pre-trained, un-naked self. Perhaps I am the one who needs potty training, or at least training in potty training. Until then, shield your daughters’ eyes when you come to my house.

Rats

John, my 2 1/2-year-old, looted my closet as I got dressed.

"What are you doin' mommy?"

"Getting ready to go out with dad."

"Why are you? Where are you goin'?"

"Out to eat," I said, dressing fast, since the babysitter was on the clock.

"Out to eat? Why are you?"

"For fun."

"Are those your shoes?"

"Yes, these are my high-heeled shoes, and this is my skirt."

"Your skort? Are you a lady, mommy?" he asked, as he hit pay dirt, a small box of purses.

"Yes, I'm a lady, John." I stepped back to see myself in the full-length mirror. "At least I like to think so."

"Are you pretty?"

I paused. Where did he get that?

"Are you pretty, mommy?" he asked again.

"Pretty? I dunno know. Am I?"

"Nope."

Blogging for Books

Last night I entered this cool contest for bloggers (or is it bloggists?).

You can read my entry here.

View all of the entries for Blogging for Books #3 here.

And you can find out all about the contest and out how to enter the next one here.

Thanks to Jay over at The Zero Boss for running the show!

8 Minutes, My Ass

I found myself on a beach in June with cellulite down to my calves, saddlebags the size of small suitcases and unprecedented rolls on my stomach. Being a fighter (and vain beyond belief), I resolved to do something.

As I do whenever I have a problem, I bought a book. Now, I’m not a diet person. Even before the word “diet” went out of vogue, I never, ever followed a meal plan, bought prepared meals, substituted shakes for meals, counted my points, or any of that. Sure, there were some pills, but that was in high school and I really did it for the buzz.

For weight loss, I never succeeded until after college, when I ate nothing but plain spaghetti with Molly McButter, Fudgecycles, beer and pretzels for six months while doing Kathy Smith’s hour-long Fat Burning Workout every other day. Which, by the way, resulted in me looking like a thin but flabby person with a degenerative muscle disease.

But after a miscarriage in March, I logged many hours at Barnes & Noble, trying not to stand for too long, weeping unpredictably and sucking down Mocha Frappaccinos aplenty. It was in this bloated and hyper-caffeinated state that I first spotted 8 Minutes in the Morning, by Jorge Cruise.

When you have small children, life is broken down into very small segments of time: two minutes to dress, 30 seconds to brush your teeth and, if you're lucky, one solitary minute on the toilet. The rest pretty much goes to them.

So, the idea of an eight-minute workout appealed to me, because it's so much less than the 60 or 30 or 20 minutes I usually try to do. Perhaps if I stopped wasting so much time taking care of the kids and the house and cooking meals, I could come up with 8 minutes for myself!

Fast forward to June when I was in that vulnerable post-beach state. I got online and found, to my delight, 8 Minutes in the Morning to Lean Hips and Thin Thighs, Lose Up to 4 Inches in Less than 4 Weeks—Guaranteed! I checked out www.jorgecruise.com, and he declared “Welcome to the #1 club that guarantees two pounds a week in 8 minutes!”

I was like, well praise God, Hallelujah, Good Will Toward Man! There was hope for me, perhaps even by Labor Day! I tossed the lean hips edition along with the “8 Minutes in the Morning Kit,” in my cart, because the kit came with cards and a CD, contained the original program, and seemed necessary to the total 8 Minute experience. Plus I got free shipping that way.

With bells on both feet, I leapt onto the 8 Minute bandwagon, which involves:

• Exercising within 10 minutes of getting up in the morning.
• Eating within one hour of getting up in the morning.
• Eating every three hours during the day.
• Not eating three hours before bed.
• Eating only one serving of carbs and three of protein at each meal.

Here I am, 11 weeks later and nine pounds lighter. I am still doing my morning exercises and not eating in the evening. (Beer doesn’t count, does it?) I have eaten more vegetables in the last 11 weeks than I did in the previous 11 years. However, I am no longer looking through the hopeful lens of the marketing blitz, and now I see the program in a more realistic light.

When you read Jorge’s book or Web site, you will see that part of the 8-Minute marketing-ease is “NO gyms, NO pills, No surgery, NO banning foods, No counting calories and NO dieting!”

No, (or should I say “NO”), I did not need a gym. I even quit my membership last month after not setting foot on the premises for six months. There were NO pills, unless you count flax-seed-oil pills, of which I swallowed about 231. There was no surgery, although I’m still open to that option.

However.

On reading the program it’s apparent within two pages that the eight minutes is 10.5 minutes, since you jog for a minute first and stretch for 1.5 minutes after (which you will do, Cruise says, “if you’re smart”). For “even faster results,” Cruise suggests an additional eight-minute stretching session each day. That brings us to 19 minutes.

Of course, your heart needs a workout too, so throw in three to four power-walking sessions per week. That brings us, all tallied and averaged, to 29 minutes per day (with Sunday off from the aforementioned “8 Minutes”).

Don’t get me wrong. I like Jorge’s program. I’m happy with the conditioning I got from his eight-minute routine, although the leg workout could be tougher. I even sort of like Jorge, even though he appears to be the Stepford wife of Anthony Robbins.

But I took the guarantees as a challenge, following the program to the letter, and doing all of the “if your smart” steps. Even the “for faster results” ones. I ate small servings, measured and timed. I ate 12-gallon drums of lettuce. I did it all, baby. All 29 minutes. Guaranteed. For 11 weeks.

So, Jorge, please. Please don’t say it’s eight minutes per day when it’s more than that. Don’t say no banning foods without noting that eating bad (read: yummy) foods means you will eat very, very little. Don’t say no counting calories then tell me to keep my snacks to 100 calories and my treats to 50 (who’s ever heard of a 50-calorie beer?). Don’t tell me no dieting when my family is having spaghetti and meatballs and I can only have a ½ cup of spaghetti (have you SEEN how little that is?), two meatballs and a 12-gallon drum of salad.

You can, however, tell me how you will compensate me, since I did not “lose two pounds a week in eight minutes.” I like to think it was because I gained muscle, but still, a guarantee’s a guarantee.

This summer I lost nine pounds and 2 inches, and I’m happy with that. I’m still on the program, and I recommend to anyone who is trying to lose weight or needs to start consistently conditioning their major muscle groups. Maybe I just needed to get a few things off my chest. A little dieter anxiety, if you will. (Yes, “dieter,” Jorge.)

But this is not about the scale, or a marketing department’s false expectations or guarantees. It’s about taking care of myself so that my kids have to nurse me well into old age.

Mother Pain

Like most mothers, I first experienced “mother pain” before my first son was even born, when I was about seven months pregnant. It was a news report of a baby's death (I'll spare you the details). Then there was the late-term miscarriage of a friend of a friend’s baby.

I first heard the term on someone’s blog, I think, followed by a deft description of how its tendrils emerge from the radio waves, the TV broadcast or the computer screen and burn into your heart and mind until, just for a moment, you feel like it was your child. Almost.

This weekend, terrorists and rebels killed 170 schoolchildren. With more than 340 deaths and nearly a thousand injuries, this event is the second-largest terrorist attack in history, second only to September 11. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5881958/).

According to NBC, “An unidentified intelligence official was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying the school assault was financed by Abu Omar As-Seyf, an Arab who allegedly represents al-Qaida in Chechnya, and masterminded by Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev.”

After 9/11, the only comfort I found was in our country’s unity. But this morning, I feel like that unity, the one we need to meet this threat, is dissolving. I fear that we’ve fallen back into a false sense of security so pervasive that we can even question our own government’s efforts to warn us and keep us alert.

It’s true that these events and our response to them will define our generation. So, please, do think for yourself. Do criticize the government. Doubt. But also, don’t lose sight of the evil that terrorists are spreading throughout our planet. Don’t lose sight of our responsibilities in the face of that evil. Take a moment and look at the pictures all over the news today.

After I read the news reports this morning and cried a bit at my desk, I began fussing about the family room, straightening and picking up. For some reason, I began singing “Oh it’s a beautiful morning, oh it’s a beautiful day,” some old song my Dad used to sing. (Although his other favorite, “Make the World Go Away,” would have been more appropriate).

Ben and John surprised me. Rather than demanding that I STOP SINGING RIGHT NOW, they began to take turns, softly singing, “Oh, it’s a beautiful day,” over and over. I had to sit back down for a minute, close my eyes and listen. I had think of those other moms who, this morning, can only dream of hearing their babies sing again.

Four More Years!

As most of you know, the Republican National Convention is this week, and tonight, President George W. Bush will speak. In honor of that, I post a few facts for your consideration

Unemployment:
The national unemployment rate, 5.5 percent, ``is lower than the average for the 1970s, 1980s and the 1990s.'' Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, speaking to the RNC, September 1, 2004.

“Our economy has experienced 11 straight months of job growth, with 1.5 million jobs created since last August. Today’s news shows that the unemployment rate has declined in four regions and in 49 states over the last year while nonfarm employment increased in 46 states and the District of Columbia.

"These results show that the President’s economic policies are working, but more needs to be done. Congress needs to act on the President’s proposals to further strengthen the economy by reducing wasteful litigation, providing more access to health insurance for small businesses and making permanent tax relief for working families.”
..."
Source: U.S. Department of Labor http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/opa/OPA20041660.htm

Some Historical Perspective:
The following is from Tyler over at www.pardonmyenglish.com:

Liberals claim President Bush shouldn’t have started this war. They complain about his prosecution of it. One liberal recently claimed Bush was the worst president in U.S. history.

Let’s clear up one point: President Bush didn’t start the war on terror. Try to remember, it was started by terrorists BEFORE 9/11.

FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us, Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.

Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us. Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent. Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden’s head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

Over 2,900 lives lost on 9/11. In the two years since terrorists attacked us, President Bush has:
liberated two countries;
crushed the Taliban;
crippled al-Qaida;
put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot;
captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

We’ve lost 900 soldiers, an average of 450 a year. Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.

For those of you who vehemently oppose Bush, I know that I cannot change your mind with a blog post. All I can ask is that you keep an open mind, and that you continue to pursue the truth.

Bush-Cheney 04!