Manresa! and other things

Back when I started my whole diet/wellness thing (now dubbed the "me project"), Squonk told me that if I made my goal weight, that he'd take me to Manresa. It's the local Michelin-starred restaurant, good enough and pricey enough that I'd requested we go there for our 10 year anniversary, which is still another 3 years off.
When he said this, back in April, I added some criteria to what it meant to make my goal weight --- that I had to be at or under that weight every day for a week.

And, thank you very much, this morning was day 7.

WHOOO HOOOO!!!!

Now we have to figure out logistics of child care and so forth. The gym day care has a parent's night out event once a month that we have been meaning to try. Or we might hit up Aunt Loohoo and family, depending on how the timing and logistics work out.

The other nifty thing is that I found a dress in the back of the closet that I purchased 5+ years ago for when I lost weight and got in shape.

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On the kid front, Hannah pulled herself up to standing on our coffee table on Saturday. She's also got two teeth now, but isn't really crawling yet - she scoots around surprisingly fast, however and has dusty streaks down the front of her onesies by 9am most mornings. She's also hit a point where she wants to be held a lot more. This gets cumbersome, since Alia is having more opinions about how much undivided attention she receives as well. There isn't a lot of rivalry between the two of them yet - Alia isn't really jealous of the attention her sister receives, and as long as I sell the shared attention with a positive spin, she's happy.

A tooth! Among other things

Note: This was written on Wednesday, 7/29...

Hannah cut her first tooth! Unbelievably, she was not insanely fussy in the leadup. Maybe a little bit more than usual, but she is such a mellow baby and so easily distracted from problems, that she didn't seem to be overly bothered by it. It's the lower front right tooth.

I left the water meter key out on the side of the house (a full year ago, actually), and Alia found it yesterday. I let her play with it, not figuring she'd do much damage with it --- she doesn't really swing these things around, so it's not like she's going to crack a window. She did do some damage - she landed it on her big toe yesterday evening.
I headed out to a friend's jacuzzi party (a bunch of mommies in a jacuzzi - don't even try to picture the flab) and promptly forgot about the injury. Alia is not typically a night visitor to our bed these days, but last night she came in at midnight. Squonk tried to get her back into her own bed, but she re-visited us at 1:40. I got up with her and tried to get her back to sleep in her own bed. She flopped, asked for her water, and then about 3:30 told me she was hungry. So I got her a PB sandwich, woke Hannah up for a feeding, and we had a little party of it. I put Hannah back to bed (she's so easy that way!!!), and continued to cuddle Alia back to sleep. I left Alia at about 4:15. She came back into bed with us at 6, and Squonk got up with her about 6:25. It was only later that morning that he mentioned the toe injury, and I couldn't help but gasp when I took a look --- the nail bed of her toe is completely purple, in the sort of way that makes me think it might actually fall off. She's can curl her toes, but complains to me about it hurting when she walks too fast.

More notes: Alia's fine. Toenail has not yet fallen off, but still could. Kids are resilient. Hannah still has only one tooth, and it's teenytiny, not growing very quickly. I suspect the slow growth is why it doesn't bother her much, since the surrounding tissue is having plenty of time to move out of the way. With Alia, her first tooth was fully in place the day after it emerged, just to give a point of reference.

June/July updates

As for what's been going on around here:

- I am proud to say that I've lost 26 pounds since April. I am now at a weight that I have seen twice since my high-school days. I'm still progressing on the weight loss front, so probably have about 5 more to lose before I head strictly into maintenance mode. The real bonus is that I'm eating a whole lot healthier than I ever have before, and on a very consistent basis. No longer am I chowing down crackers mid-afternoon, or subsisting on grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. I'm typically getting my 5-9 fruits-and-veggies down my gullet, with it frequently reaching the "9" quantity as opposed to the "5". The other bonus? Of my weightloss group at the gym, I dropped the highest percentage of body weight. Part of the program was a competition over 12 weeks, so the person who "won" (me!) got 4 free training sessions from the gym. I start a set of 4 weekly Pilates sessions on 7/30.

- Hannah is starting solids. We did rice cereal on 7/5, Oatmeal on 7/10, and Bananas yesterday. She wolfs down the cereal - genetically, she clearly inherits from me, and the carb addition apparently went with that. She does not appear to like the bananas. I tried a mushed one this afternoon instead of the jarred version, and she still didn't like it.

- Hannah is also scooting around. She's none too fast about it, but she is a determined little girl if she sees something she wants 5 feet away.

- Alia eats her veggies. My favorite quote "No, you can't have any salad until you finish your meat." A few weeks ago, I had her in the basket of our Costco cart. I loaded up with the blueberries, the cherries, and the grape tomatoes. Of those 3, Alia could not be stopped from opening the tomato package, spilling them inside the cart, and chowing down 3 of them before I could clean it all up enough to get it back in the box and off the floor. That's not to say she won't eat her weight in berries.

- We embarked on the potty training thing for Alia. It's not going well. She seems to have an idea of when she's going to need to potty (aka, can I pee in my diaper?) but throws a fit if we stick her in training pants, or try to leave her with no diaper on. She gets confused by the training pants, and uses them like a diaper, which winds up with wet clothing and a bit of a mess... SHe will use her potty from time to time, but has to be bribed with a TV show, so she'll sit on the potty with no fuss, if the TV is on and she's got her potty in front of it. Sigh. I had been hoping to discontinue the diaper service after we'd gotten her trained, but it looks like I'll need to make another plan - the service is expensive, and I could "pay off" the cost of the new diapers by washing them in about a month. We already have Hannah's size, so we'd need the larger ones for Alia.

- Alia received the big box of dress-up clothing from her aunt and uncle and cousins for Christmas. They were immediately loved. She also got a book called "Fancy Nancy" from her Grandma (whose name is Nancy), and also loved that immediately. Now, 6 months later, she wants to hear that story daily, demands that we call her Fancy Nancy (although I tried Alia Regalia, which sometimes passes), and simply won't get out of her dressup clothes if we are in the house (I pointed out that she might lose them at the gym, since she tries on their dressup clothing there too, so we take them off for excursions). They are all stained with spaghetti sauce or fruit juice now. I think I need to start sewing some costumes - the ones we have are nice, but they are going to wear out at some point.

In the news

So, being part of a neighborhood with architectural interest, there's a publication dedicated to us. Recently, they did a profile on our little neighborhood, and I'm in it!
It's not exactly the New York Times, but it is fun to see your picture in the paper, even if they mislabel it and turn me into a 70 year old woman. :)

http://eichlernetwork.com/nbrhd_fairhaven_sj.html

A case of the giggles

Last Saturday, Squonk got the day off to go play games with his buddies. This meant that I needed to juggle childcare needs for the whole day and evening, including bedtime.
Sometimes, I'm not so good at scheduling stuff. Sometimes one of the kids doesn't want to cooperate.

As I'm putting Alia to bed, Hannah decides she just doesn't want to sleep at that point.

So I bring Hannah into Alia's bed, and I read stories to both of them.
At the end of storytime, Alia asks to cuddle with Hannah. Hannah is now a lot less fragile (her four-month exam showed her at 14lbs 4oz (75%) and 26" (98%) - wow!!!) So I lay Hannah next to Alia.

Alia starts giggling.
Hannah starts giggling because Alia is giggling.

This continues for a number of minutes.

And I'm practically in tears because it's just so darn cute. (Not to mention, we got a repeat performance last night, for Squonk to witness.)

I haven't forgotten....

We've been pretty busy around here, actually.

I joined a gym-sponsored weight loss program at the beginning of April. (Yep, no excuse for nearly blog-less March). Unlike Weight Watchers and other programs, this one is fitness-based while still focusing on dietary intake. So each week, they award plastic bracelets for both weight loss and for workout "points" (5 points per min of cardio, 1 point per 100lbs of strength training). So far, I've gotten a pair of bracelets for Alia to drag around the house each week. They are adding to the mess, but I'm proud of them.

I decided to join, because I wasn't losing weight after Hannah the same way that I did after Alia. I wasn't going to wear maternity clothing for another whole summer, and I wasn't going to purchase new clothing ---and my "fat" pants started getting holes in the knees.
Couple all that with the idea that if I got some momentum on the weight-loss/exercise front, I might as well try to commit to losing that last 15 or so pounds that I have been wanting to lose since college. So that put me in a 35 pound loss target. :)
I'm down about 10 pounds since we started the whole thing. YAY!
I am *almost* fitting into some of the looser pants from my pre-pregnancy days. I figure I have another 3 weeks or so of my yoga pants with the hole at the bottom, that I really bought as maternity pants with the intent that they might be workout pants later.

All of this means that our morning routine looks something like this:
Wake up, shower, don gym clothes.
Convince Squonk to walk the dog, as I down my coffee while nursing Hannah. (Kudos to Squonk for getting up earlier to walk the dog)
Hit the gym, find parking if I'm lucky. Spend about 90 minutes there.
Come home, feed Hannah, eat lunch and get everyone (including me!) down for a much needed nap.
Wake up, feed Hannah, walk the dog, start dinner.
Squonk comes home.
We eat dinner (Hannah typically gets hungry here, so I wolf it down and feed her while Squonk tries to coerce Alia into eating something.
Squonk does the dishes.
We alternate putting Alia to bed. Usually a number of times, since she gets out of bed and does things like putting on her fairy wings or rainboots and then getting back in bed to sleep. Why are rainboots required for sleeping? I'm not sure...

As busy as it is, it's turning out pretty well.
One thing about the whole weight-loss deal: It's not a diet. It's a lifestyle change. If those extra pounds are going to come off, I'm going to have to maintain a lot of the changes I'm making now, over the long term.

I am, however, determined that I'm not going to be a gym-rat - one of those people who hangs out at the gym permanently. I need to find some sort of sport or activity that I both like, and which isn't strictly gym based. Hmmmm.

Hannah updates

Hannah got her first series of shots this morning, along with her 2-month exam. She's now 24.75" and 12lbs 1oz (WOW!!! 75th percentile for weight!) Alia was 12lbs 10oz at her 4-month exam. It's kind of nice to have a kid that the pediatrician has dubbed a "heavy baby" - I had/have spent so much time worrying about Alia's weight gain and eating habits, that it's rather nice to have one that's not so worrisome.

Alia still doesn't eat much - I'm starting to resort to the traditional "toddler foods" like hot dogs and spaghetti for lunch. Yesterday, I cut her sandwich into a heart shape for her, and then did it again when she lost interest in that (after about 3 bites). I don't want to coerce her into eating, but I'm having to physically hold food up for her to get her to take a few more bites, and chase her around the house with the food (she thinks its funny, so at least there's that.)
On the plus side, she really likes fruit and vegetables - they are often the only things she'll fully eat off her dinner plate. And she's always interested in grabbing handfuls of lettuce, and actually eats them (I'm lazy, and serve salads up directly from the costco-purchased box of organic spring mix).

Birthday cards

I'm notorious for showing up at birthday parties with our gift in a bag, no card included. Usually, it's because I've left the wrapping until the last minute, and didn't get off to purchasing a card to go with the gift. If the gift is in a bag, then the bag is nearly always "recycled" from a gift I've received.

So I can totally relate to this story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090310/ap_on_fe_st/odd_cheap_brothers

My kid's a GENIUS!

Ok, maybe the title goes a bit far... But Hannah rolled over front to back this afternoon.
She's 8.5 weeks old.
Hee hee!

In other news, I made sauerkraut 2 weeks ago, and then corned beef (the bag from costco, so not home-corned) The plan is to go purchase some rye bread at Trader Joe's tonight or tomorrow, and we'll be eating Rubens for lunch or dinner. I tried the sauerkraut last night in a "test eat" to make sure that it wasn't going to poison me. I had erred on the side of saltiness for fear of the little microbes that make sauerkraut sour. I'm not totally sure what I was worried about, seeing as I had built my own sourdough starter a few years ago and never had any qualms about sticking a clean finger in and tasting it raw --- it's largely the same sort of environmental bacteria that work in both treatments. Anyhow, neither Squonk or I have gotten ill yet. As one of my recipe sources points out, for most fermentation, as long as you've followed the basic instructions, if it smells and looks like something edible, go right ahead.