NO I AM NOT PREGNANT

Some of you have already heard me gripe about this but this week someone at work asked me if I was pregnant. Now this is fourth or fifth time someone has asked me that after going back to work in October when Ty was 3 ½ months old. I am not exaggerating. The first two times (in October and November) were embarrassing but at least I could say my child was 3 – 4 months old. The other times have been more recently and Ty turned 8 months today and if you use the logic – nine months to put on the weight and nine months to take it off, then I have exactly one month to get in shape. But how am I supposed to go from looking pregnant to not looking pregnant in one month? I admit that I look about 3 – 4 months pregnant when I slouch. My stomach is stretched out and there is a layer of fat there. My arms and legs and hips are all normal. I understand that having a pouch and being normal everywhere else makes me look a little pregnant. I am concerned that I will have that nice layer of fat there until I am done breastfeeding which will be in about 4 months. I don’t know if I can go through another 4 months of people asking me if I am pregnant. I even worked from home on Thursday and Friday because I didn’t feel like trying to find clothes that didn’t make me look pregnant. OK, well the truth is that I have a cold and I normally work from home on Fridays but it was a huge relief to not have to put on anything other than sweats.

But forget about the facts of whether I look pregnant or not… the real issue is:

WHAT IS UP WITH PEOPLE ASKING IF I AM PREGNANT? I thought everyone knew that you don’t ask that question. You can ask other people and hope they don’t relay the question but you just don’t ask that question. Why are they asking me? Is it their business? Would they ask someone, “Why are you so fat?” No, of course not. But it’s OK to ask “Is the reason you’re fat because you’re pregnant?”

A New Pair of Jeans

I’m still getting headaches every day which I have been attributing to dehydration, even though I only drink water throughout the day with the exception of a couple cups of coffee in the morning. I’m starting to wonder if I should take a trip to the doctor to see if they can figure out what is going on. How many gallons of water would it take for me to not have these headaches? What if it’s not dehydration?

I went to a show called “Defending the Caveman” at the Orpheum last Sunday night with my “theater group”. This particular show was almost like watching a stand-up comic… it’s a one man show and was on Broadway for a long time. It compared men and women to the way they were during the caveman times and it was quite funny. I actually gained some insight. When Brian goes golfing with his friends or my sister’s husbands for 4+ hours, I always ask him what they talked about. He says, Nothing. I don’t believe him because how can you spend that much time with other people and talk about nothing??? Obviously they talked about something very juicy and he is withholding information from me. Well, it turns out that he was not withholding information from me and that they literally didn’t talk about anything other than “nice shot” and “where’s the beer cart?” Women, on the other hand, would know all the intimate details of one another after about 30 minutes. Well, there you go. Another mystery solved.

I spent the week driving around in a Pontiac G6 while Progressive worked on my car since I had a lot of damage from the car accident last week. I have to say they were an excellent insurance company to work with. They made everything very easy on me and were very nice. Even though I had the kids with me and they were hungry and dirty, I am so glad that I decided to stay until I got a police report in my hands. I have heard horror stories from people who exchanged insurance information but didn’t get a police report and the stories change and then you can’t get the other person’s insurance company to pay. So make note of that, no matter how tempting it is to leave. Unless it’s your fault. Ha ha.

We had book club on Friday night. There were only five of us but I actually liked that better because it was easier to hear everyone and talk to everyone. We read “My Sister’s Keeper” which is a decent read and I would recommend it. Of course, we had the same juicy conversations and spent very little time talking about the book. What else did you expect?

On Saturday I decided to go to Scottsdale Denim Company for a pair of jeans. Let me first start off by saying that I believe you never have to pay full price for anything. I used to spend 8 hours a day at the mall or Last Chance or the outlets to find a great bargain. The truth is that to never pay full price for anything and to find something decent AND to find something that actually fits a post-partum body requires a tremendous amount of time that I don’t have. If I’m lucky, I can shop for a couple hours a month. Well, I realized that none of my jeans were fitting me well and I was getting frustrated so I decided to see what these expensive jeans are all about. You know the jeans that all the movie stars wear. I personally tend to pay $20 – 30 for a pair of jeans, typically at Old Navy and sometimes I grab a pair at Costco. They have a very small selection and no dressing rooms so you can imagine the trial and error involved there. Well, now I have a ton of jeans that fit me so-so to poor. So I decided to go to one of those places where you tell them your size and the people who work there bring you tons of pairs of jeans to try on until you find the best one. This kind of service comes with a price but if you read my ROM entry, you will know that I look for any opportunity to buy time. Most of the jeans were too low-rise for me. I’m all for lower rise jeans but many of these are very low. We finally found a pair of jeans with a little bit higher rise (but no where close to a mom jean!) and a really nice slight stretch. All of those jeans I had heard of “7 for All Mankind” and “Citizens for Humanity” and “True Religion” made my rear end look like a sausage. I ended up with “Joe’s Jeans”. I paid several times more for these jeans than Old Navy jeans or the latest Costco special but I really love them and feel good in them and they are amazingly comfortable. I guess now that I know what brand/style works for me, I can search for the best deal on them with all my free time. Ha! The good news is that my quest to find jeans took all of 30 minutes, not including the drive time to Scottsdale and back. That rocks.

I met up with Brian and the boys at the mall afterwards and even managed to buy a pair of sandals. That felt really good too.

On Sunday I met Jill, Liz and Kim for lunch at Arcadia Farms. They went off to the Phoenician for massages and I went home because I can’t seem to get enough of Brian, Jack and Ty on the weekends, as crazy as that sounds. I just love spending time as a family. I ended up taking Jack to playground and socializing with some of the neighbors. On Sunday night I went to Tami’s house for girls’ game night. That was a lot of fun but I had to bail early (11 PM!) because I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

On Monday we had the day off work for President’s Day. Because day care was open, we took the boys in around 9 AM and I went to get my jeans hemmed and Brian got his tire fixed at Costco. Then we went to House of Tricks for a great lunch, sitting outside in the sun… just the two of us enjoying smoked salmon and turkey waldorf salad and a glass of wine. It was very luxurious. We almost never go out on dates! We browsed around Z Gallery and Costco Home and went to Starbucks. We picked up the boys around 3 PM and had a nice leisurely dinner. It was an awesome day. I wish we had these “free” days more often.

The Range of Motion Machine

I said in my last post that I would tell you about the ROM machine. ROM stands for Range of Motion. This is the machine that claims to get you 30 – 45 minutes of cardio, 45 minutes of strength training and 15 minutes of stretching/calisthenics in 4 minutes. Yes, that’s right folks. FOUR MINUTES. I have to stay that I don’t know exactly how it works. But in seeing it and reading all the literature, Brian and I made the leap of faith to rent the machine for 30 days. This is not cheap… you have to really think you would want to buy it if you are going to rent it. 97% of the people who rent the machine, buy it.

We have been reluctant to tell people about it. Mostly because people think we’re crazy for believing this is possible and then to spend a lot of money on something that seems like snake oil… well, we felt that it might be best to keep it a secret. But it’s just too good to keep a secret. It’s really all about time. Brian and I are always looking for ways to buy back time. We pay to have our house cleaned. We pay to have someone clean our pool. We pay to have someone take care of our yard. Sometimes we do Dream Dinners to have someone make our meals for us. For years and years, I have spent about 1 ½ hours every weekday doing aerobics including drive time, getting dressed, doing the classed, showering and driving back. This equals about 7 ½ hours/week! The ROM machine allows me to buy back that time and to keep my exercising to 1 hour a week! I was contemplating going to a 32 hour work week which would be 1/5th of a pay cut. This extra time would be spent doing errands so I didn’t have to do them on the weekends. It’s been so nice to run errands during lunch and get things done that I normally wouldn’t get to do during the day.

The other thing about the ROM machine is that it makes the most efficient use of the time because it’s the perfect exercise. One day you do the front part of the machine and the next day you do the back half of the machine and then you alternate to give your muscles a rest. The front part of the machine exercises every muscle in your upper body including your abs. It’s like a rowing motion only the range of motion is much more exaggerated. In the process of using all the muscles and using the machine in a fluid motion, you get your cardio. The back part of the machine is like a stair stepper but again the range of motion is exaggerated. This has much more cardio benefits because you are using your biggest muscles. I have to pace the kitchen for 10 minutes afterwards to catch my breath.

So the question is: does it really work? We have had the machine for over three weeks now. If you are out of shape but not that much overweight, you are not able to judge your improvements by weight loss because of the muscle being built up in the process. I will say that my muffin top has decreased in size quite a bit although I still have a ways to go. I have more energy to play with my kids but I will say that I am very tired by 10 PM. My posture is better and my lower back hurts less. Overall I will say that I am very impressed with the machine and it allows us to put a huge priority on health for a very small time investment. My goal is to be healthy and fit for my kids for a long time and I have confidence that this machine will help me with that goal. How can you put a price on that?

Check out my later post to see how we like the ROM (it's awesome): http://kelsstinson.blogspot.com/2007/07/june-2007.html

We Are Always Sick

We kept Ty home on Monday, February 6 to be on the safe side after his bout with RSV and pneumonia. This required some negotiation between me and Brian since we both had critical things going on at work. After the usual, “you think your job is more important than mine” conversation, we tagged teamed the day and got through it. I hate to say this but I can’t wait until Ty is Jack’s age when he won’t be hit so hard with all these illnesses. Jack’s nose seems to run all the time but he seems fine. I ran into an old friend and she has had two kids since I last saw her (and I’ve had two kids). She says her kids are always impeccably dressed in Ralph Lauren. I told her my kids look like street urchins. Which they do. Jack has taken to wiping his nose across his face with his sleeve. This leaves a gummy booger residue all over his face and it’s impossible to get off, like trying to get a price tag off an object. He screams when I try to get it off and it does seem to be chapped so I give up half the time. Ty doesn’t wear anything but sleepers. Never cute overalls or pants without snaps… I hate taking pants on and off when I change a diaper. My poor kids.

So back to this old friend. She was my neighbor the first 4 years I lived here. I will call her “Betty”. I would say we were friends but she was one of those “with friends like that, who needs enemies” friends. Betty would rip mutual friends to shreds when I was around and I was not too naïve to think that she wasn’t doing that to me when I wasn’t around. She told a friend of mine that both my boyfriend pre-Brian and Brian both hit on her. She did seem to have some magical powers over a lot of guys but I happen to know that Brian wasn’t fond of her. Over time, I found myself being very guarded around her to the point where I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want her to turn it around on me later. Despite all of this, we had some really fun times together. More so in the beginning than the end. When Brian and I got married and moved into this house in 2000, I stopped calling and emailing Betty. Then, at a homeowner’s association meeting, a neighbor came up to me and said we had a mutual friend in common. It was Betty. She said she would let me know the next time Betty came over to her house. She did and out of morbid curiosity, I went over there to see her. Betty did most of the talking, as usual, and she would tell stories of stuff that the two of us did that were really funny. We had a lot in common at the time (both single, same age, working, owning houses right next to each other, having guy problems, etc) and now we still have a lot in common (both married, 2 kids, like to work). But can a leopard change her spots? What makes people talk so viciously about someone who is their friend? And if someone is like that, will they always be like that? I’d like people’s opinions.

Sarah came by to visit one evening. It’s hard to socialize too much when I come home from work and have to eat and feed the boys and get them to bed but Sarah colored with Jack and they made strawberry shortcake together. It’s nice to have extra hands around the house in the evening when things are so hectic.

On Friday I left work a little early to meet Heather, Janine and their babies for lunch and a trip to the zoo. I took Ty with me and he seemed to enjoy the fresh air and staring at me, which is sometimes a little disconcerting but since it works for him, I go with it. Ty and I met Brian and Jack at Abeulo’s for dinner and we had a nice meal. Jack is still really into eating which makes restaurants a fairly painless experience as long as there is a variety of food. I gave Jack some grapefruit over the weekend and he thought that was pretty good. I’m amazed at the food he likes that I wouldn’t think a toddler would like: fish, olives, green and red peppers, grapefruit, lemons… I keep wondering when he is only going to want to eat Chicken Nuggets. I like to think I’m not one to brag about Jack other than his exquisite taste in food but tonight I was helping him with his Valentines for school tomorrow. I had him put a sticker on each of the valentines after I put his classmates’ names on the valentine. Jack then proceeded to “read” the name that was written on each of the valentines. I thought the first one was a fluke so I had him “read” a few more and he got about 80% of them right. I have to say that I was impressed. Now I have to believe he is just doing some pattern recognition here… I really don’t think he can read. But still, I was very impressed. I am his mom and I am impressed easily of course.

On Saturday I woke up feeling like I drank a bottle of tequila the night before. Splitting headache and nauseated. That lasted all day and into the night. I woke up Sunday and I was fine. Heather, who spent the afternoon at the zoo with me, sent me a note today and said she was throwing up all day Sunday and today. Guess hers is lasting a little bit longer. And Ty… well, he puked all over himself at day care around 3 PM. Nice. I can’t wait until it’s 115 degrees outside so the germs go into hibernation.

Next Blog entry: The ROM Machine

Another Quick One

Ty is sick. Most likely he had RSV, the dreaded virus that puts many infants in the hospital. This turned into bronchiolitis and pneumonia, confirmed by a chest x-ray. This time he didn't have to go the hosptial, either because he was bigger and healthier or because we had a nebulizer (not sure if I spelled that right), the machine that allows us to give him breathing treatments. What really sucked is that he got his sickest when I was out of town on business for my first overnight trip since he was born. I hated taking an overnight trip... I hated being away from my boys and not being able to put them to bed at night and I hated all the logistics of pumping and making sure my breast milk stayed cold. My boss made a crack about the size of my suitcase for an overnight trip (which had one article of clothing and the rest of the suitcase had a breast pump, plenty of attachments, a cooler bag, and other items that could maintain my small dairy). I did enjoy a dinner out with co-workers without worrying about getting back home to relieve a baby-sitter and I guess I got a little more sleep than usual but I still felt tired.

I got home Friday night. On Saturday Yvonne and Colton came over to hang out and have dinner and on a whim, Brian and I went out for a couple hours while they watched the kids. We rarely have date nights so we went to Cost Plus to look around and then to a wine bar and then back home.

Sunday Brian went to a Superbowl party and took Jack and I kept Ty at home since he is still sick. Monday is another day of trying to figure out how to cover work commitments but still take care of Ty. Sigh. He is much better but I prefer to be conservative with his health.

Crazy Drivers

Quick post: Tuesday I picked up the boys from day care and was driving home. I was about to make a right on red and had pulled forward to get a better look when BAM! I got hit on the back left side of the car. It was a woman who was behind me, also trying to make a right turn on red but I guess she wasn't looking in front of her. So the good news: no one was hurt and it wasn't my fault. The bad news was that it took over an hour for the police to come and do a report, which I need to file a claim with her insurance company. Jack and Ty were in the back seat fussing on and off. I am just thankful we weren't really hurt. The woman who hit me tried to blame it on someone who was riding her tail but the police didn't think that was justification for hitting me. She was pregnant and flustered and I can sympathize with her but that doesn't pay the bill to fix the car.