Waistline

Today I started a thing. Not exactly a diet, since I stink at those, and not exactly an exercise routine, since I didn't exactly exercise today. Today I got back in the game of Trying To Be Thin Healthy again.

Since the half-marathon I've put on an errant 15 pounds. When I ran the half-marathon I was still about 10 pounds heavier than I wanted to be. And in the past few months, my mother has lost the weight equivalent of my 3-year-old. So you can see where I'm headed with this.

I enlisted a coach, who's actually a high school friend who lost something like 100 pounds last year by running and eating a healthy diet. He coached teams at our hometown gym with great success, and I quietly e-mailed him and asked, as long as he didn't breathe a word of my actual weight to anyone, would he coach me?

He advised me to sign up on a site called LoseIt.com so we could track my progress online together. To give you an idea of how ridiculously terrible I am at Trying To Be Thin Healthy, here's a look at my first day as posted on LoseIt, along with what really happened (please post comments on how you're totally the same way below, pleaseplease):

Calorie budget: 1,326
Breakfast:
Cheerios, 1 cup
1 egg, hard boiled
2 c. coffee with fat free half and half
I actually don't care that much about breakfast, but there was just a tiny amount of cereal left in the box and I didn't want to put it in the pantry and I didn't want to toss it, so I ate it. Trevor had boiled eggs last night so since they were already done, why not have one so that I could post on LoseIt that I ate pure energy for breakfast? I then felt so guilty about eating the stupid cereal that I went back to the LoseIt site and created a "new" breakfast item, Meijer Organic Honey & Nut Cereal, which is what I actually ate but couldn't find it in the first place so I had just checked "Cheerios." Had to dig through recycling to find out calorie content, which was 10 calories more than Cheerios.

Lunch:
1 apple
3 Newman-Os (wheat-free, organic Oreos made by Paul Newman)
Let's be honest, I only had three because that's all that was left.


And yes, that was lunch.

Dinner:
Shrimp, sauteed in butter
Broccoli, steamed
Macaroni & cheese
Candy bar
Bonus points for shrimp which are actually only 22 calories each (excluding the butter). Mac & cheese because dinner was already late. Candy bar was not revealed to rest of family, because I was the one doing the dishes and therefore ... well whatever, I ate a candy bar on the first day of my diet healthy lifestyle.

Snacks:
Special K Crisps
These are 100 calories each, and even though I noted that I had three, I actually ate five. Yes, five. That's five hundred calories, in case you hadn't done the math, all in Special K Crisps. 

If you're wondering, I still came in under calorie budget today. This is going to be a snap.

Dreams

The reason I think I'm pregnant (I'm not) is because of the dreams.

I've always had really vivid dreams, and have also always wished I didn't dream at all - just a flat, constructive sleep. (Incidentally, my dad also wishes this, because he can. not. stand to hear about my dreams. So he should probably stop reading.)

The girls have started having regular nightmares. Berit can be soothed by having someone talk with her about them, and then, sometimes, having one of us sleep with her. We don't mind. It works.

Marta, however, has had nightmares for two straight nights, wherein she cries out every half-hour or so, yells at people, kicks and hits, and sobs. She's not comforted when I go to her - she doesn't quite wake entirely, so she's more irritated. I sleep in her room, in the bed next to hers, so I can at least whisper comforting things when she cries and rub her back. But it doesn't seem to help. I've cut out sugar before bed, tried filling her belly, tried not filling her belly. I don't know.

But I'm feeling like there might be something more - the moon, maybe? Because I've had unrelenting bothersome dreams, too. Dreams like I had when I was pregnant (and not the really, really good ones). Not scary, but nagging. For example, twins. We should adopt twins, not just one baby. In my dream I weigh the pros and cons of this for hours. I make an appointment with our case worker. I calculate how long it will take me to drive there and home, and whether or not I can make it while the sitter's home with the kids. I wonder if I want to risk driving down (you know, because I might die in a car accident).

And then I dream about babies. Everyone's new babies. Baby stuff, baby smells, baby names. Usually I'm not holding the babies, but want to. And then I weigh the pros and cons of having another baby. Or having another baby AND adopting our baby. If I get pregnant today, could I manage to travel to South Korea next month? Then the kids would be close together in age. Babies.

And of course I dream about money. Because here we are, wrapping up the house, and paying every crazy bill one pays while wrapping up a complete home remodel. And so I dream about the girls' tuition, and water bills, and surprise bills (whoops honey, I forgot to tell you I decided to add an apartment on top of the garage, sorry), and oh, the adoption bills.

And then I dream about a vacation. Because we want to take the girls to Disney this February; one final vacation with just the four of us, something really special to them before the new baby arrives. But, well, note the above paragraph. So my brain teases me with telling the girls about Disney, and with arrivals and the fun we'd have, and then throws in our not being able to go, and how no one will really know but me, but still, I want to go, too, and am I letting my kids down?

Last night, after having the twin dream, I decided to just stay up. It was exceptionally bright outside (so maybe yes, the moon after all?) and I just sat there, listening to Trevor sleep - he sleeps like a child, hard and unworried, the sleep of someone who worked hard for 12 hours, and then had a glass of wine before bed. I went in to Marta, I stayed in her room, I came back to mine. I obsessed about the house (should we move the girls into one room when Baby comes, to preserve the playroom? Could Baby share his/her room with playroom? Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no). I let the dog out, then in.

I think we've all had just about enough of this middle place, this limbo. I think we're all ready for stability, for routines, for our own bedrooms and steady work. Will this make the dreams go away, for everyone? Or will our sleep always be as transient as the moon, wherever we are?

Run

After three months of first walking, then bouncy-walking, then jogging, I'm about to run my first race. I did do a 5K last year, which was admittedly really hard for me to do. But I'm talking about something bigger - something I've been working on constantly. Tomorrow is only 8 miles (and really, I'm still just jogging). But in a few weeks I'll be doing 13.1, which is something I never thought I'd be able to do.

It's a strange place for me to be. I've never, ever done anything non-kid-related since the girls came along. Maybe a shopping trip or a quick night away with Trevor or my freelance writing... but I've never set out on a goal and accomplished it because I truly wanted to. Kind of pathetic, really.

So I'm excited about this. I know I can run 8 miles. I've done it a few times now, and even though I haven't had a good run in two weeks (weather + garage sale + busy husband), I feel like I can make it work. My sister, on the other hand, is running a whopping EIGHTEEN MILES tomorrow, as she prepares for her first marathon. I can't even imagine what it takes to run 18 miles, but she's got it, and she always has. She's such an inspiration, and I feel so happy to know that someday, her children will know that their mom is not just their cook, their cuddler, their go-to gal. She has a life, and it's a healthy one. It's a concept I'm trying to emulate, and I think it's working. Berit has recently come down with a case of High Energy In The Middle Of The Day and has started asking to run with me. Well, sure. Why not?

Friday Night

On most days you'd have a pretty tough time convincing me to get the house in order before the kids went to bed, and to get said kids into bed waaaay early. Like, 6:30. But tonight is the end of a long, long week -- my grandmother died on Friday, we had company over the weekend, Trevor's cousin has been here all week and the two of them have worked on the Division Street house from sun up to sun down, Berit's preschool conference, checking out potential schools for Marta's extra energy, two pressing deadlines, our final adoption report came in and needed reviewing, we had remodeling loan drama and a dog who might have had cancer (but didn't -- yet still needs surgery). Both girls had colds all week and Marta has been up at least twice every single night for at least the past two weeks. Maybe two months. I don't know.

This is not to say that I'm not thrilled with my existence on this planet, in this house, in this family, in these situations. As my friend Kelly says, I'm just sayin'.

But man, did I ever need tonight. My house was spotless by 5 p.m., the girls bathed and in bed by 6:15. We did our workout together today and even I have been freshly showered since 5. I love this space, this quiet, totally alone. I always have. I rarely do anything during these times besides surf the web and talk to my sister on the phone. I had planned to fold clothes while watching a movie tonight. Not looking good for that. You know, internet and magazines.

Right now, no one needs a decision on a roof color. No one will read anything I write for my deadlines (though I should shouldshouldshouldshould be using this time to write). There is nothing to be faxed, learned, or walked. It's like this closet in the universe where I can sit in the semi-darkness eating peanut butter from the jar and try to work out everything I did, or was supposed to do, this past week. It's also where I swear it'll all get done next week.

Momentary Quiet

Hi! Just wanted to drop in and tell the world (a.k.a. my readers, a.k.a. my sister and two of my mom's friends and one devoted college friend) that I'm at a coffee shop by myself. Writing.

Just thought I should preserve this moment in posterity (a.k.a. the internet blog that could blink out at any second and I wouldn't know how to fix it).

At least you four know. Raises empty coffee cup, smiles at weirded-out barista.

Memory, Birds and, Well, Me

I need to post about the big birthday party, but I'm waiting for our pictures to be developed (yes, I still use an old film camera). In the meantime, I was just playing memory with Berit, and thought to post about it. See, we had all the cards set up and we were both looking forward to the game, me because I love when she's interested in learning games, and she because she's been begging me to play with her one-on-one all morning and finally I could. So we get started, and she's doing awesome -- three matches to my zero. And then she starts flipping cards over, frustrated, clearly looking for something in particular, so I ask her about it. "I'm looking for the bunny," she says. I glance and her matches and see that she has the carrots. "Is it because you want to feed the bunny a carrot?" I ask. "Yes," she says. She then throws all of her other matches into the pile, messes them up so I can't see which one is which, and starts flipping the other cards, looking for the bunnies. When she finds them she lays them over the carrots and announces that she. is. done. Nice. Good learning all around.

I keep thinking back to Friday night. After putting the girls to bed, Trevor went over to his parents' house because his brother and his brother's family were staying there. So I put on my earbuds and listened to an audiobook while I made cakes for Berit's birthday party. Before I knew it it was 1:30 a.m. and I was wrapping up both the book and the cakes. It was so peaceful, so entertaining. I love the quiet of a sleeping house. And even though I love my husband and I enjoy spending time with him, I also really like being alone. For me, being alone and doing something like baking or cleaning while listening to an audiobook is completely restorative. I feel efficient and productive and totally relaxed. I should make a point to do this once a week, as it's only Monday and I keep wishing it were still Friday evening.

We have recently hung a birdfeeder on our sliding door; the kind that's see-through so the kids can watch the birds eating. It's great because the birds are already used to us peering in at them, and rarely flinch when the kids walk right up to the door and bang on the glass. This prompted a little red squirrel to be interested in the crumplins that the birds dropped on the deck, so we had to put a tray of sunflower seeds out for the squirrel, who doesn't care if Marta walks over, picks it up, puts it in her pocket and takes it to the grocery store. Seriously, it just hangs out there all day long, watching us watching it. But then we had a huge snowfall that covered the tray, so I put a big old roasting pan on top of the snow, and the birds and squirrel climb in to munch. I guess what I'm saying is that we've got a tray, a roasting pan and a bird feeder within two feet of our sliding door and it's a mess out there. I'm considering cleaning it all up, but really I'll just wait until the cursed snow melts and it's time for spring cleaning. I think I'll just keep dumping seed in the vicinity of the tray and pan and hope no one calls for a house showing.