Because I'm a Pile of Lazy Fatness

The gym used to be my hiding place.  It was a refuge from my all consuming job.  It was the one part of my life that my boss respected.  He didn't care that I had a husband or a family, but if I told him I was going to the gym, he would not call me.  I used to spend two hours in the gym at a time.  One hour with weights, one hour on the elliptical.  Some days I only had time for one hour and I  would just hit the elliptical.  I would crank up the music in my headphones and run until I felt the stress melt out of my pores.  That runner's high you hear about?  Totally real.

I made fitness my hobby.  My superior, holier than thou, knowitall hobby.  Along with the gym devotion, I ate super clean.  Six meals a day, nothing processed, complex carbs, good fats, lean proteins.  I was a woman obsessed. I was in really good shape, probably the best shape of my adult life.  I had definition everywhere.  Even my abs (which will never be a six pack) were flat and hard.  My boobs were the smallest they ever could be without surgery.  To quote Frank, upon looking at a vacation picture of us that summer, I was "diesel". 

The gym part wasn't hard, but the eating clean was brutal.  I'm a fatgirl.  I love deep fried, covered in ranch dressing goodness. And pizza.  I prefer my chicken in finger form.  Dr. Drew could probably do some work with me on sugar addiction.  My favorite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon is a two hour brunch with mimosas.  My favorite thing to do after work is red wine and cheese and olives.   Most of my socializing with friends involves food and wine.  All of  which, after having a baby, ha-HA, but you get my point.

The day I found out I was pregnant was the last day I went to the gym.  In the beginning it was the absolute fatigue.  It hit me the hardest.  Trying to still work 80+ hours a week and being so tired, I just didn't have it in me to go to the gym.  Pregnancy became my get-out-of-diet free card.  The world became my very own all-I-could-eat-buffet.  All the things I never touched; pizza, ice cream, deep fried everything, macaroni and cheese, pudding(!). I ate it all and then took a nap.  It was awesome.  My sister warned me to take it easy because it's not that easy to bounce back after baby.  I filed that information right next to all the advice I ignored about breastfeeding.  

My marathon eating slowed a little as Bo grew because I just didn't have the room for him and the pound of pasta.  The diabetes diagnosis made me put down the Phillies Graham Slam (best ice cream flavor ever) and return to my breakfasts of oatmeal and egg whites.  But still, I did not exercise.  Being confined to the couch for 8 weeks made me totally inactive - which was the point I know, but something about being medically prohibited from moving in my brain equaled EAT. Also, I ate out of boredom. 

In all I gained only about 25lbs and lost some of it in delivering Bo and the subsequent nursing marathons.  I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but not my pre-pregnancy body.  The number on the scale is irrelevant to me.  I'm short, top-heavy, and thick-waisted, all characteristics that have gotten more pronounced since being pregnant.  All of my old definition is gone.  I'm squishy and soft-bellied.  My stomach muscles are totally slack and if I don't pay close attention to my posture (and suck in), I still look a little pregnant.  All of my endurance is gone.  All of my strength is gone.

I hate it.  I hate how I feel about myself.  I hate how out of shape I am.  Yet I can't get it together to work out.  We have at treadmill in our basement.  I can't get it together to walk downstairs.  Every day it's the same routine:  nighttime Hopes set the alarm for 5am because I know that if I don't exercise before the day starts, it's not going to happen at all.  Nighttime Hope pep talks herself about how great the rest of the day will feel if I work out first thing.  She has big plans, that nighttime Hope.  Unfortunately, morning time Hope has no interest in starting her day at all, let alone starting it with exercise.  It's the oldest cliche there is.  Once you stop exercising, starting again is the hardest part. I have no excuses you haven't heard already: the baby needs something or there's something interesting on tv or I'm tired or it's too hot or it's too cold or blah blah blah, fat. I am really tired.  You know what would really help me get some energy back?  Exercise.  I'm in my own catch-22 over here.

I'm trying to get my mind right about getting back into shape, but it's not happening.  80-90% of weight management is diet.  You can run to the end of the Earth and do a million crunches but if you're following that up with a pound of fettucini and pint of Chunky Monkey, it won't matter.  I've got the eating part down pretty well.  I haven't gone back to eating clean because it's frankly a pain in the ass, but my weight has been stable for months now.  I just need to get myself moving.

Frank has lost 60 pounds since last year.  He gets up every morning at 5 to do P90X before work.  He runs every day.  He's running 5k races every weekend.  I'm so proud of him.  I don't know what to do to get myself going.  I really don't.  We've signed up for a 5k together at the end of October and if I finish in under 30 minutes I get to buy myself a fabulous new pair of boots and even that isn't getting me out of bed in the morning.  

I guess I'm trying to shame myself into exercising.  If I tell all of you - you know, all 4 of you - maybe I'll have some kind of accountability or something.  I don't know.  I have to do something.

(Still) Recovering

We went to Disney World for Christmas.  We left on Christmas Day and came back on New Year's Eve.

Oh shut up, I know it was bad idea.  I mean, I know it NOW.

We were warned not to go during that particular week.  All of our guide books* and websites** said DO NOT GO and gave tips only IF YOU MUST GO.  We blew them off though, because we are experts.  They don't mean us.  Those warnings are for amateurs.  We're seasoned veterans!  We go every year!  We have a plan! And fail safe routes!  Crowds don't bother us! We're used to it!

Dude.  Do not go during the week between Christmas and New Year.  It's not worth it.  Everything that makes Disney special and magical is lost during this week.  Lost to the endless throngs of rapacious people trying to get there first.  There were women, mothers with small children by the hand, kicking my stroller out of the way to get in front of me.  And we weren't even trying to ride anything!  Bo spent most of the time in the carrier strapped to Frank's chest because he didn't enjoy being surrounded by so many people that towered over him.

The poor employees, who are usually so happy and helpful that I secretly wonder if they're all robots, were visibly frazzled and stressed out, trying to direct the masses with - I'm not even kidding - the wands normally used for waving in airplanes.  In addition to the whole damn world being there to celebrate the holidays, there were at least three bowl games taking place in Orlando on New Year's day.  So of course people were like, "let's go early and go to the parks before the game".  There were mothereffing marching bands in the middle of the Ma-jerk Kingdom, as if foot traffic could have gotten more congested.  I swear the entire state of Louisiana was there.  Geaux Tigers.  Puke. I was even ready to punch my fellow Penn Staters because really, get the hell out of my way.

In short.  I don't care if your last name is Disney.  DO NOT GO the week between Christmas and New Year.

* if you ever plan a trip to Disney, this book is invaluable.  We buy the current edition every year.  It's full of genuinely helpful tips and info.  It has restaurant reviews, hotel reviews, ride recommendations for different age groups.  It's incredibly comprehensive.  It also has touring plans in the back that you can cut out and take with you.
** as valuable as the book, this website will tell you which parks to visit or avoid on particular days according to crowd levels.  He uses a red light, yellow light, green light system and following his advice always ensures a comfortable and fun day at the park. 

Kitty

This cat. I think he's out of chances.

Kitty took a few swipes at Bo again recently, this time claws out. The boy was reaching blindly over the arm of the couch (from Frank's lap), just to see if he could do it. The cat pounced and swatted at Bo's hands and mercifully missed. He then jumped onto the couch where he tried to again scratch and claw at the baby. Frank locked him in the basement until Bo was safely in bed.

Something has to be done.

What can we do? None of our friends or family will adopt this cat. He's a psycho and they all know it. Even my sucker-for-anything-with-fur sister wants no part of this cat. I can't in good conscience offer him to strangers, knowing full well that he's unbalanced and will literally bite the hand that feeds him.

Bo is right on the cusp of crawling - we're talking days, if not hours - and while I can put covers in the electrical outlets and locks on my cabinets, I can't babyproof the cat. Or kitty-proof the baby. Anything on the floor to Kitty is fair game and I can't have him coming at Bo's face.

So what do we do? Be those people? Those people who abandon their pet when they have a baby? I'm not that girl. I'm the girl who gets all eye rolly and disdainful when I read the little descriptions on the cage at the shelter about why the animal was given up. Like, didn't you KNOW that was going to happen? Why didn't you PREPARE better? How can you just give your cat away? Why don't you try that book Or a clicker?

So now I direct all of these mean and judgey comments at myself. And I add new fun ones like, why am I so LAZY? How can I say I'm too TIRED to try the book now? Don't I LOVE my cat?

I'm horrified at the thought of taking this poor cat to a shelter. When he gets out of the house (he makes a break for it every time the door opens), he doesn't even leave the yard. We always find him waiting by the front or back door after 10 minutes of backyard adventure. I can't imagine how freaked out he'd be in a shelter somewhere, waiting for me to come back.

I don't know what to do. I mean, I know what has to be done, but I can't bring myself to do it.

FAIL

It's not my intention to let this blog languish for weeks at a time. I was talking to Lora the other day (it was more than 2 weeks ago but in the freaky fastforward wormhole that sucked me in the day Bo was born, that was like yesterday) about how this blog sucks. Her response was that it doesn't so much suck as it's just nonexistent. So true. It's not that I don't have anything to talk about or think about or work through. I just sort of suck at life these days.

Speaking of sucking at life...

You know that expression we like to use about how people should be required to obtain a license to have kids? I solemnly swear to never, ever say that again. Because if it were true and I passed the test in the first place (which is no guarantee. My stupid driving test took 3 tries. And I was 23 years old.), my license would have been revoked already, multiple times. Because I suck. I also promise to never again snark about the ridiculously unecessary warnings all over every baby item ever produced, as I am apparently their target audience. That audience being, of course, morons.

Last weekish, I was in the kitchen with the baby, trying to clean out the refrigerator. He was in the bumbo seat because he MUST! BE! UPRIGHT! at all times. In being upright though, he must be no more than 2 feet from my face. So I had him in the bumbo, in one of our kitchen chairs. The chairs are those high, bar stool style ones for sitting at a counter. Or a bar. They do have backs, they're not actual stools. Anyway, he was in one of those chairs and I had him pulled close to me, within (what I thought was)arm's reach. Except notsomuch.

In the minute it took to turn my head and shove something down the garbage disposal, that boy fidgeted and wriggled himself right off the edge of the chair, head first, onto the floor. Onto the ceramic tile kitchen floor. Head first.

Then I had to be the idiot mom at the pediatrician's office (at 8pm bless them) explaining that I had my baby rigged precariously and let him fall off of a chair. I could not believe I was actually uttering the words "I just turned around for a minute". GAH. I wanted to roll my eyes at myself.

He was fine. The doctor isn't sure he even hit his head at all.

It's becoming scarily clear though, that could be the first of many trips we'll be making to the doctor's office/emergency room with this boy. He spends most of his day launching himself head first at things he wants or at nothing in particular. When he's not trying to bash his skull, he's attempting to escape from whatever I've tried to use as confinement. He makes the exersaucer move across the floor with all his vigorous thrashing about, he's figured out how to use his foot as leverage to get out of the bumbo seat (that thing is so retired by the way), and more than once he's rolled clear out of our laps. I'm not saying it's ok to drop your baby, but I understand how it could happen.