Fat Mom to Lean Kids

I have been losing weight over the last few months. It is quite possibly the slowest recorded weight loss in the entire written history of the world, but nonetheless, I have been losing weight. I've lost enough weight that people have noticed. I have not lost enough weight to hit my first benchmark. I have two pounds to go before that, so I'm thinking I should hit the benchmark by the end of June if I maintain my current pace. Don't blink - I wouldn't want you to miss it. My goal from beginning to end is to lose just over 50 pounds.

Nick has also been working on losing weight. I'm not sure what his goal is or where he is on his path, but he has been working out in sort of patchy streaks. When he gets his streak on, he drops weight quickly just by working out for an hour a day. (Insert rant #1 about how unfair it is that he can lose so easily and rant #2 about how unfair it is that he has an hour a day to work out.)

Somehow, despite the weaknesses that Nick and I so obviously have, our children are thus far lean, strong, and fit. They make healthy food choices. They lead active lives. They are athletic and beautiful and I want nothing more than to preserve that for them.

So how does a fat (for now) mother lose weight without influencing the already healthy attitudes of her children? I cannot hide the fact that I am making lifestyle changes. I don't think that's particularly healthy. I also don't think it's particularly healthy for my kids to see me working so very hard to make choices that seem natural for them. Last night when I told Jacob that I was going to walk around the park while he played, he suggested that I run instead. "I really think you should start running, Mom. That'll help you lose weight." I teased him about becoming my personal trainer. Then later, I wondered if he is serious about that task - that he is taking my weight on as his own problem.

I grew up with a morbidly obese mother. I remember my mother trying various diet and exercise programs. Even worse, I remember my father buying her exercise equipment for Christmas. I also remember when Mom gave up and decided to just be fat forever. She was just a little younger than I am now. My mother's weight struggles are hers, not mine but I would be a fool to deny that her problems have affected me.

Like my children, I was lean when very young. I began chubbing up in my teenage years. I've been thin a few times since then, but in the past I have always gained the weight back after a year or two. This is the last time that I am losing this weight. Once it's off, no matter how long it takes, it is staying off. But dealing with the day to day problems of weight loss is more challenging than I ever thought it would be. What do I say to Claire when she sees me counting out my pretzels for a snack? How do I answer Jake when he asks me why we hardly ever get donuts on Sundays anymore? How do I make the changes that I need to make without changing what is obviously working for my kids' health right now?

5 Joys of Parenting

Mary tagged me with this and it's taken me a few days to be in the right frame of mind to tackle it. Jacob is on spring break and is therefore bored out of his gourd, my diet is stalling out, Nick is writing term papers, pick your reason. It's been a long week. But! I have just about managed to free my inner Pollyanna and end this week on a good note. So, without further ado, I present 5 things I love about parenting:

1. Little League. No, I am not living vicariously through my child. It turns out that an hour at the ball field is a rollicking good time. I sit next to my husband for a whole hour. I talk to friends. I watch the occasionally hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking moments on the field. I yell, "Wooooooooo!" or "It's ok! You'll get it next time!" I hold my breath whenever the uncoordinated kid goes to bat, hoping that this time he manages to hit the ball. And when he does, I leap to my feet and roar with the rest of the parents. At the end of the night, I am grinning like a fool. The first game of the year is on Tuesday. I cannot wait.
2. Confidence in my own abilities. In my childless days I assumed that if I wanted to learn a new skill, I had to enlist an expert to teach me. My kids have taught me that I can figure out almost anything. I can make a Halloween costume from a picture in a comic book. I can decorate a cake to look like a clown. I can fix a bike. I can speak entirely in rhymes for an hour. And it's not because I'm particularly talented or intelligent - it's because a child believes that I can.
3. Singing. Having very small children is a great excuse to sing at any time. I love to sing and there are only a limited number of situations in which singing is an option. Add a child to the equation and that number expands exponentially. And they sing too!
4. Poetry. Children, especially when they are learning to speak, are astonishingly poetic. They don't have a large vocabulary so they have to use their small vocabulary creatively. "I'll make my feet whisper," Claire told me the other day when I said her jumping would wake up Daddy. When Jacob was feeling anxious, he told me that his heart was "bouncing around." They just throw these phrases around like they're nothing and then wonder why I am smiling.
5. Jokes. What does a bunny sing at a birthday party? Hoppy birthday to you! It just doesn't get better than that.

I'm tagging Cheri, Chelsea, Sara, and Lisa (but I'll be patient since she's having a baby right this very instant).

Park Cleanup: Boys and Graffiti

Jacob's cub scout pack volunteers to clean up our local park for the annual Easter egg hunt. It's one scout activity that I actually enjoy. The boys are hard workers (as are the parents) and the weather is usually nice. Also, I am convinced that if we spend enough hours picking up trash during these years, my son will not be one of the boys throwing his beer bottle against the handball courts in ten years. I hope.

This year, we discovered more than the standard fast food wrappers, broken beer bottles, and cigarette butts. Several of the boys were picking up butts around a bench a few dozen yards away from me. I saw them huddled around the edge of the bench, then they all came scooting across the lawn to me. "There's some writing on the bench!" I looked around for other parents and realized that I was the closest to the action, so I allowed myself to be pulled back to the bench. One of the boys read the graffiti in his very best read-aloud voice. "For mindless sex go to ..." followed by a web address. The boys all looked at me with big eyes as the reader asked, "What does it mean?"

I gulped, then attempted to distract. "Oh, what a shame! Who would write on a bench like this? That is just not nice. You boys know better than to vandalize the park like that! I'm so glad that you are nice boys! Good job on the cigarette butts. Let's go over by the garden and look for more!" Six eyes stared back at me. They weren't about to let me get away with it.

"But what does it mean?" They waited expectantly.

"You boys are going to have to ask your parents. Jacob, wait here and we'll talk about it." The two other boys shot across the park with lightning speed, screaming for their parents the whole way. I blabbered some sort of explanation to Jacob, most of which I can't even remember. I do remember wrapping it up with a stern warning that the writing was not appropriate for children and that if the other boys had questions they should talk to their parents about it. Jake wandered off after getting bored to tears by my lecture. I made my way back up the hill to the other parents.

"Sooooo, what did you say?" I asked.

"Well," replied another mother. "I said that we'd talk about it later. And then my son said that Jacob's mother knows what it means and if it was ok with me, he'd just go back and ask you again." She laughed and we went back to picking up litter. Ten minutes later, the boys were back at the bench again.

That's Ms. Hammer to you!

Spring has sprung. I can tell because

• The daffodils are up.
• There are buds on the trees.
• My sinus pressure is rapidly approaching the point where my eyes might actually be pushed out of my head.
• My children have completely lost their minds and forgotten that people call me The Hammer for a reason. (People really do call me The Hammer. Mostly people who I have specifically told to call me The Hammer because I find it amusing, but it still counts.)

Yesterday, Jacob was laying on the couch under 5 feet of blankets. He was complaining of headache, stomach ache, and any other ailment that he could invent. Since Claire had a stomach bug on Friday, I was willing to believe the stomach ache. I told Jacob that he could skip church if he spent the time working on a book report that I had been nagging about for a full week. He readily agreed. I arrived home an hour or so later to discover a three sentence book report on a book with 50 words in it. 50 words! Not 50 pages, but 50 words! The Hammer came down and lo, there was much weeping in all the land. Eventually, Jacob read a book that was a little closer to his reading level and wrote a 4 sentence report.

Then this morning, Claire got in the act. I was in my room trying to get dressed in the dark without waking Nick. Claire was in her room on her bed, completely dressed except for socks. She hollered, "Where are my socks! I need my socks! No tights! I need my tights! Red tights! New red tights!" By that time, I was in her room hissing at her to be quiet little missy and don't you dare wake up your father because I am tired and he is tired and he is going to sleep for 15 more minutes so help me God. She stuck out her little chin, pointed her little finger, and said, "I don't want to hear what you are saying."

I replied, in my most mommish voice, "You are going to hear what I am saying because you know what, little girl? U Can't Touch This."

It hurt a little to say it.

Boy! If I see you reading that book for one more second, I'm going to come in there and take it away. Go. To. Sleep.