Monthly Archives

February 2015

Laughs

Sittin’ with her Slither, Slither, Slither

February 16, 2015

Tune in today to see if she can … give a child a beloved stuffed animal sidekick in one easy misstep.

I have had some ugly coats, you guys. It’s not like I set out to make a name for myself with putrid outerwear. It just kind of happened. From my “fancy” pleather red trench with fake pockets, to a pseudo-sheep wool warmer from a 5-7-9-type joint, I guess it started in college. Then I had some decent years. (No, thank you, Target.)

But a revolting one-two punch of a fashion faux pas was brewing. There are those adorable gals who can carry a baby through the winter with just an endearing peek-a-boo from their blossoming belly thanks to an undone bottom button. Then there was me. I still remember my Mom picking up a maternity Emerald peacoat with a ruffly flair and dubbing it, “Adorable!”. If it sounds cute, I described it wrong. This jewel-toned shot of eye poison could only be dethroned by what would forever be referred to as, “the body bag” by my best girlfriends. I had asked Santa for a simple black winter jacket for my third pregnant Christmas. What I got was a dark, cylindrical cocoon of a coat with zippers down the side so that, if I were to grow beyond human comprehension, I could let them, as well as my girth, go completely.   

But the era of eyesores was ending. This past Christmas, I sent my mom a link. I had picked a perfect parka; the parka to undo my tumultuous track record. Cute, right?

Then something stupid happened. I washed and dried it without removing the tickly fur trim. It went from wispy to old woman wig in one cycle. Only then did I notice the convenient buttons, and remove the matted mess.

An hour later a sweet little voice said, “Mama, can I have the hair from your coat?” It was JoJo, holding the strip of fur that served as an adorable flourish just yesterday. “Sure,” I replied. “Yessss! It’s going to be my snake, Slither!” And with that, a friendship was born. Slither has accompanied her to school, slept coiled up next to her in bed and starred in this short thriller set in the suburban jungle.

It’s really cute, and maybe a little of this …

But certainly, with a track of button holes and no sweet fake fur trim to attach, the coat has lost a bit of its luster and my street cred is, yet again, the only true victim in this story.  I’ll go for cool again next Christmas.

Until next time … 

Kids

First came JoJo

February 14, 2015

When we got married in 2007, my husband told me he was ready for children whenever, but did not want me to tell him when we were “trying”. No special look, no secret code word, no headstands immediately following. He, “didn’t need that kind of pressure.”

As a magazine journalist living in the mega-not-really metropolis of Indianapolis, I would repeatedly deliver, with a big-city-girl, matter-of-fact flair, a rehearsed monologue in which I denounced the idea of motherhood for at least a year. I needed to focus on my career, enjoy being married, and all that other newlyweds jazz. Naturally, this meant I was pregnant by July, just 10 months after the wedding. I don’t know, it just all of the sudden seemed like a good idea.

Of course, as soon as I saw that conspicuous plus sign staring back at me on not one, not three, but six pregnancy tests, I was terrified at the magnitude of the impending upheaval. Hank was out of town when I found out, so I took a handful of primary-colored Planned Parenthood condoms left over from college and taped them to our bedroom door with a sweet little note from “the bean” to him. It was a list of requests, really. To console him/her when monsters lurked and teach them to be strong, like him. At some point I fell asleep, and woke up to a nervous, crooked smile about 2 inches from my face. “Is this real or, did you get a puppy or something?”

On the night I went into labor, Violet was attacked by a maniac on Private Practice. I was sprawled across my bed, a sunburned Beluga whale, eyes wide open as the unrealistically calm doctor instructed the psychopath how to cut the baby out of her womb (I really hope you’re following this, or else it just sounds terrifying), when my water broke. At 11:20 the next morning I was bearing down under a spotlight that stole the last of my humility, while the rest of the people in the room watched The View between contractions. One minute my doctor was declaring her distaste for Joy Behar and the next, an 8 pound 2 ounce human joined us in the room. It was a girl (a surprise for us) and she arrived looking wise and worrisome. In a fourteen-hour period, I’d gone from watching a baby come into the world, to watching my baby come into the world. I was a mom.

Since we didn’t know the sex of our sweet arrival, we went in with four contenders; two boy names and two girl names. When little Miss showed her precious round face, we were down to two choices. I knew what I wanted, but Hank needed to study her a bit. Frenzied and wired with all the moxie of a freshly minted father, he took off for the nursery, only to return 5 minutes later. “Well?” I poked. “What do you think?” He placed a thumb under the prominent part of his chin and rubbed under his bottom lip with his other four fingers. “See, they all have the same hat on, and …” We had been parents for 2 hours, and now sat together nervously smiling at the sobering realization we couldn’t pick our baby girl out of a pool of her similarly swaddled peers. It was a blow.

The next day Hank left for a bit. He came back with a flowering plant for me, and a small clear vase with a suction cup on it for the baby. It attached to the side of her small, clear crib and cradled a single yellow rose. The nurses gushed and cooed. How cute … her daddy wanted to be the first man to get her a flower. But we knew the truth. We knew those sunny petals were a beacon for picking our little chubby-cheeked chick out of the crowd. Maybe not our proudest achievement as “Mom” and “Dad”, but it was our first, and so it must be mentioned here for posterity.

 

Almost as soon as she could talk, she began referring to herself as, “JoJo”, an epithet inspired by her middle name. And so it’s stuck, for 5 beautiful years.

 

 

Wellness

Whole30, we meet again.

February 13, 2015

Tune in today to see if she can … Finish a second Whole30


In 2013, I was locked in a bitter battle between my goal weight and the final pounds remaining in a snail-paced descent from the second most epic weight gain in my history as human. To be fair, I did get a butterball of a baby (our second) in exchange for those 60+ notches on the scale. But now I needed a little nudge – nay, a complete overhaul – to bring it home and hit my prebaby digits. Buying into the buzz on the blogosphere, and at the urging of one of my dearest friends, I checked It Starts With Food out of the library and brought it along on a business trip to Austin.

The book and the Whole30 program were a lot to digest – pun intended – so I took the meat of the pages and created a short stack of cheat sheets. Copies of my primal packet in hand, I coerced a few girlfriends and my husband into joining me and my co-worker/great gal pal for a 30-day clean-eating adventure.

No dairy, legumes, wheat, sugar, alcohol, MSG (the hard stuff) or tobacco? It wasn’t an easy sell. But somehow, we made it. After a rocky start for the lady of the house (“Is this the flu? Or … what the hell is happening to me?” It’s called a sugar detox, and it ain’t pretty.) and one unfortunate peanut binge from the mister (“Well what the hell is a legume anyway?”), we logged 720 hours with nothing but clean, fiber-filled fuel and we felt great.

Putting all my cards on the table, I was skeptical. And then, about 9 days in, I tipped the cup back and drank the compliant Kool-Aid, so to speak. I was a convert. I mean, think about it. Almost everyone stuffing their face with the common American diet is struggling with some issue related to their skin, mood, energy, digestion, a food addiction, excess weight or sleep. Or, in my case, nearly all of those. The investment is really a little extra effort, with a return of health like you never knew your body was missing. You don’t know bad until you feel really, really freaking good.

A second date with W30.
Fast-forward to January of this year. Loaded down with baby weight (baby No. 3), a devil of a sugar addiction and just a general sloth state of being, I knew it was time to circle the wagons.

There were definite perks to shedding the amateur distinction. I felt more confident, prepared and excited for the “tiger blood” that sets in somewhere toward the middle-end. But every experience yields different lessons, and here are a few things I took away from this turn.

Whole30 lessons learned.

1) Pal up on Pinterest.  Create a board and start searching for #Whole30 recipes. If the pins are from cooks like me, they’ll have sweet little insights like, “add extra mustard”, “double the sauce”, “NOT. GOOD.”, etc. Take note of people’s notes, learn from their disastrous (and delicious) dinners and find pinners that speak to your palette to follow.

2) Basic is baller.  We’re in a safe place, so let’s just put it out there: Cauliflower crust is a paleo urban legend. You have a friend who makes the best cauliflower crust breadsticks with cashew cheese? Well, I’ve got $10 to Pizza Hut that says that’s bullshit. Let’s just stop the lies. I sabotaged so many meals on my first Whole30 by trying to make our usual food fit the requirements. Avoid the pitfalls and strive for whole, easy dishes that don’t involve “deconstruction” or anything “reimagined”.

The Chew’s Baked Artichoke Chicken, for example, took no more than 15 minutes to assemble and called for very few substitutions. It’s delicious on a manic Monday night. For a speedy Chinese takeout vibe, get this Ground Beef Stir Fry with Wilted Napa Cabbage poppin’ in your wok. This was my favorite dinner over the entire 30 days. Let’s make a pact right here, right now to skip the molecular gastronomy and agree we just aren’t fancy enough for that shit.

3) More is still not enough.  The best thing about eating so clean, is you can eat a ton of the foods on the list and still reap rewards. Let yourself get hungry and you’re screwed. Whether you stay at home all day or take your talents elsewhere, never find yourself without an approved option. Embrace fruit, LÄRABAR®, (Blueberry Muffin and Cashew Cookie got me through more than one instance where it was just me and a box of bear claws in a meeting room.), chopped veggies, crumbled bacon (Costco has approved options), guacamole packs, plantain chips and nuts as your new indulgences. That said, try to avoid grazing. [insert cow audio]

4) Bring your posse to the party.  I had a great group of gals from the office show up to the dance this time and it was a game changer. Exchanging recipes, gripes and victories can be the difference between dropping out on day 10 and considering a Whole90. (Yes, I actually did that.)

5) Prepare your pitch.  Sad but true, everyone from your mother to your waitress is going to question your “new crazy diet”. Practice a 2-minute elevator pitch explaining why you’re doing it, why it’s awesome and why it’s not for everyone. That way, when you hear this …

You: No, thank you.
Them: What, you don’t like mac ‘n cheese all the sudden?
You: Well, I’m doing this thing called Whole30. 
Them: What the hell is that?
You: It’s basically where you cut out processed crap and just eat whole foods for 30 days. 
Them: I eat whole foods … In fact, I’m gonna eat this whole plate of mac ‘n cheese right now.
[Pause while they snort-laugh at their massively original wit.]
You, if Carrie Bradshaw-esque voice-overs were a legit thing: Have fun slammin that Velveeta and being backed up for 3 days, son.

… for the billionth time, you’ll have a big can of verbal mace shaken and ready. You don’t need criticism but it’s natural for people to doubt what’s different. Indulge their curiosity and then shut. it. down.

Skip to the end.
After a weeklong carb/sugar exorcism and subsequent 23 days of relative successes, I lost 6 pounds (before and after pics to come … never), slept like a champ, felt completely clear-headed, had a bloat level of zero, and enjoyed sustainable energy from 5:15 am to my melatonin meltaway at 9 pm sharp. Yes, I would 100 percent recommend it. Yes, it is hard (I’m talking to you, Reese’s in the shape of a Christmas tree. You sweet temptress.). But above all of that, you can procure this cute shirt and Instagram it with a boastful, yet humble, caption at the end, and isn’t that really what it’s all about? Now go forth and purge your pantries! May the cream stay ever out of your coffee and the donuts dry and stale.

Until next time …