NO UNDERWIRE BRAS

I hate underwire bras. They are so uncomfortable and they make up about 95% of the bras on the market. I think they are a cop out. I’m sure it takes more thought and engineering to make a well structured bra without wires. Think about it. Underwire bras just have wire and fabric draped over them. Someone once told me that it’s mostly gay men who design bras these days. I don’t know if it’s true or not but personally I would rather have a heterosexual man design a bra than a gay man. At least they would have some experience with breasts.

I’m on this subject because with the return of my period after 1 ½ years came exactly 7 pimples, a reduced bra size and a reduced muffin top. Some good and some bad in there. I’ll start with the reduced bra size. I’m still breastfeeding but around the 8th month, I go through a substantial decrease in size. It’s disconcerting to suddenly have your muffin top exceed your cup size so I frantically looked through my massive collection of bras from A’s to DD’s to find one that actually fit and gave me a boost. An underwire one fit and seemed to balance me out so I wore that this week for a couple days. Until I got a clogged duct. Damn underwire. So I am back to looking droopy in a poorly constructed non-underwire bra.

I want to take this moment to mention white bras. I don’t understand them. What do you wear a white bra with? If you said white, that is the wrong answer. You can see white bras under white shirts. You’re supposed to wear a nude colored bra under a white shirt. If you have a white bra, just throw it away. I don’t really know why they even make them. But when you’re looking for a nude or black bra, they never have your size. But they will have your size in a useless white bra.

I went into Victoria’s Secret because they have this new IPEX no underwire bra. They had 20+ sales associates in the store and THREE DRESSING ROOMS. Huh? There was a huge line and I stood in line for about 15 seconds before giving the bra back to one of the many sales associates. I don’t have the patience for that when it’s a big negotiation to go shopping on the weekend. I’m all for communal dressing rooms and wish more stores had them. People are way more concerned about their own bodies than yours.

So 7 pimples. Part of my extreme makeover plan is to go on Accutane. The health nuts out there will freak out at that because Accutane is a really nasty drug. Mostly because of what it can do to an unborn fetus but I am done having kids so that is not a concern. There are other concerns in taking it and I’m trying some naturopathic remedies to get my skin under control but I am not confident. I find it ridiculous to have to the skin problems I have at my age. But the good news is the muffin top is decreasing in size. I have been using the ROM machine religiously but mostly I think it’s just the timing of things and getting my period.

The ROM machine is going well. It’s very hard to come up with an excuse as to why I shouldn’t do it every single day since it’s only four minutes. It’s an impressive machine because it detects your strength level and will increase resistance during your workout. This means that personal trainers and out of shape 70 year olds can use the machine. I admit that after about 2 minutes on the back portion I want to quit but I also think it would be lame to quit after 2 minutes so I always finish.

The thing that is most pressing on my mind right now is Jack’s preschool/day care. I think people make too big of a deal about preschool but Jack is really in day care, not preschool, so he is there about 9 hours a day/5 days a week. This is a big difference from 3 hours a day/2 days a week. Brian and I decided that we will switch Jack to the YMCA preschool/day care. The thought of this makes me want to throw up. But when I toured this new preschool opening in April, I realized that it was closer to the lifestyle that Brian and I lead. For example, at his current day care, they serve 2 snacks and a lunch every day. They serve pop tarts and pepperoni pizza pockets and other crap like that. I don’t like Jack having processed food so we send him with a bunch of food every day. The Y teaches healthy eating habits. The Y will also have the kids in the school go to swimming lessons, dance lessons and tumbling during the day because they have those teachers available to them. Brian and I like the physical aspect that they will provide. But I hate the thought of taking Jack from a day care that we have been very happy with overall and from his little buddy Jackson. I asked Brian what it would take to stop me from obsessing about this and he said it would have to be that Jack has been in his new school for a while and that he is happy. So I will grouse around for a few more weeks until this happens.

Brian’s aunt, uncle and cousin came to visit from Alaska. Because our house is a bit chaotic, they stayed in a hotel but we got to see them a couple times. They are very nice people and we hope to visit them again in Alaska in 2007 (we went in 2004 and spent the week on the Kenai river).

I traveled to Santa Clara for two days this week. I hate traveling for work because I hate being away from my boys. I also hate the logistics of pumping which you know about if you’ve read any of my blogs. I won’t bore you with the problems I ran into this time around. People say, why don’t you quit? But I can’t because there are so many respiratory and stomach illnesses going around, I have to do what I can to protect my child. When it hits 100 degree, then I can consider stopping.

Book club was Friday night and we decided that we would try meeting in a restaurant. I’m not sure if that was a good idea because over the weeks, more and more people started dropping out and of course most drop out at the last minute so of the 12 of us, only 6 ended up going to the restaurant. It didn’t stop us from having a good time though. Only Tracy and I read the book. No surprise there.

On Saturday we went to the zoo. It was very crowded and quite hot. But we still had a good time. After the kids went to bed, I drove up to Scottsdale to a Pampered Chef party, mostly to socialize. I spent more time driving up there and back than I did socializing but it was totally worth it. The party was put on by my long time guy friend Mike and his wife Karen. I would say that Mike is one of my best friends even though we don’t see each other that often any more. I used to go to happy hour with him about once a month for what we call a “Bitch Session”. Some people might think it’s strange that I go out alone with him, especially since we are both married but if you are good friends with a guy before you are married, and you marry someone else, then it’s OK to keep that friendship because if that friend were right for you, you would have married him instead. Now meeting someone after you’re married and going out alone with that person is a big no-no because the same logic doesn’t apply. Missie didn’t know Mike before she married. However, through the transitive property of being friends with me, it’s OK.

A Long One

Jack has been really clingy lately with a lot of crying and whining. This isn’t normal for him and he threw up on Sunday so Brian took him to the doctor on Tuesday. No fever, no ear infection… he did go to bed really early on Tuesday. I hate to say that I hope he is sick but I need an explanation for this kind of behavior. Because he doesn’t have an obvious physical sign of being sick, I wonder if the extra attention and cuddling and coddling is making him act this way. Or is he really not feeling well? In which case I should be providing comfort. Sigh…

My place of work has negotiated with the Y to provide a preschool for 2 – 5 year olds based on the Reggio Emilia teaching methodology. This teaching methodology is similar to a Montessori or something along those lines. Does Reggio Emilia and Montessori really make a difference for a child? Do they do better in public schools? Worse in public schools? Right now Jack is at a daycare/preschool where he has been since he was 4 months old. He is best friends with the owner’s son and several of the kids in his class he has known since he was a baby. They have a traditional approach to preschool. Is this good enough? Because I would be devastated to take him away from his best buddy. But am I doing what is best for my child? I never went to preschool and I learned to socialize in kindergarten and to read in first grade. Somehow I managed to take college level calculus, English and biology in high school, even without a Montessori education or regular preschool education. But things have changed I think. I hear people talking about how their kids had to learn to read before going to kindergarten. I actually believe that being a child should not be all about learning. It should also be about having fun because you know how play time goes away as you get older until you retire. And I know they learn when they are playing. I’d love to hear what other people think about this.

Brian’s mom, Paulette, came into town last Thursday. She came here to help her boyfriend, Ron, with his booth at the big sports show. Ron has the fishing guide business and condos on the Kenai River in Alaska. They try to book people at these sport shows. Paulette stayed with us Thursday night. That was nice because it was the night that our volleyball teams were playing against each other. I am competitive so of course I wanted to beat Brian’s team. We won the first game and then lost the second two. But he didn’t gloat too much so it wasn’t too bad. The next morning I stayed home from work for a couple hours so that Paulette could spend a little extra time with the grandkids. After dropping the kids off, I went to work where I had a 5 hour meeting where Brian was an attendee. Over time, Brian and I have been working closer and closer together. I don’t really have a problem working with him because we are on the same page with a lot of things but what I don’t like about it is that I see him as a co-worker when we are working together and that just feels blah to me. I mean, being a father has squeezed the time that he is my “husband” and now co-worker is dominating as well. I’m not sure if that makes sense. He is also moving into my building which is a rather small building. I’m not worried about this as I am oftentimes on the phone all day and don’t make it out my cubicle, plus I work from home twice a week.

Ty had goopy eyes for a few days and every time he has had this in the past (without a red eye) the doctor has said he didn’t have pink eye and therefore, shouldn’t go on the antibiotics. She says that snot comes out of the nose and sometimes the eyes and that is why we have crusties in the morning sometimes. He definitely has a cold but they are not strict about colds at day care because they are so prevalent. Since Ty’s eye wasn’t red, I didn’t take him to the doctor but one of the women at Ty’s day care would make comments every single morning to Brian about how Ty’s eye was goopy. We call this a “microinequity” here where I work. She is sending a message with these comments like: Why haven’t you taken your son to the doctor? Why are you bringing your child here when he has pink eye? I dropped him off and she said her daughter (also in the infant room) had a similar thing. She said her doctor said it wasn’t pink eye but then showed me these eye drops. Erythromycin. An antibiotic. I said, She doesn’t have pink eye and you’re giving her antibiotics? It’s not going to do anything. This is the same woman who suggested that we use the nebulizer on Ty when he had a head cold. I think that is for their lungs, not a head cold. So after 3 – 4 days of this, I want to get her off our backs, so I make an appointment for Ty on Friday afternoon. When I was picking him up to take him to the doctor, the woman said, “Oh, his eyes weren’t goopy at all today.” GREAT. So I take him to the doctor and sure enough, no pink eye. Just a cold and of course, antibiotics won’t do a darn thing. At the least I got some ear wax removal done for my $15 co-pay.

On Friday night, we ate at Pei Wei and then got some ice cream. On Saturday it rained after about 150 days of no rain. It was quite nice. I really wish I could have slept all day. Brian took Jack to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. Saturday night, Brian went out to see one of his favorite bands “The Peacemakers”. I’m at the point where I don’t like being in a big crowd getting my eardrums destroyed so I chose not to go. On Sunday Brian’s sister joined up with us (she had also been part of the sports show) and we went to the Ostrich Festival. It was mucky out there and the rides were expensive and Jack wasn’t feeling well and it was cold (Ty’s hands were like blocks of ice), so I can’t say we had a good time. Maybe next year.

Tuesday I voted in the Chandler election for mayor and city council members. I met one of the women running for city council outside the polling place which I thought was a nice touch. If she cared enough to get up early and stand outside the polling place and introduce herself, then she gets extra credit in my book. I think I might enjoy getting into city politics one day, just because I like problem solving and it would probably be similar to my current job (only about city stuff versus the supply chain), but I hate the thought of pleading and begging people to vote for me. It just doesn’t suit me.

The book we are reading for book club is called “The Birth of Venus”. This book was a little hard to get into and I have to say that there are many new vocabulary words for me in there but the story is interesting and I’m now in the obsessive-compulsive portion of the book… meaning I try to read it at the dinner table, while playing with the kids, I pump about 5 minutes longer than normal to keep reading and I stay up late, even though I am really tired!

I am going to close by saying how grateful I am for Costco. People make fun of us because of everything we get at Costco but I went yesterday during lunch and got beautiful fresh mangos, strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, clementines, and apples. The mangos and apples were pre-cut and so a little more expensive than normal but overall such great produce for a fraction of the cost that you would pay elsewhere. I was also able to buy organic brown eggs (no antibiotics/cages) and organic milk. And the book selection is so awesome… and you pay a fraction of the price that you would pay at a regular book store. I just love that store.

Mamma Mia!

I’m very late on this blog entry! I’ve been fighting a cold for 12 days now. I just don’t remember colds lasting as long as the colds I’ve gotten in the past two years. I had five, yes five 2-week-long colds last year when I was pregnant with Ty and that was MISERABLE because of all of the extra mucous production from being pregnant. This year, despite all the germs in the house with the kids, I’ve managed to avoid a real cold until now. One of my biggest pet peeves are hearing people (these tend to be older men) snorting because of phlegm in the back of their throat. Have you ever sat next to someone in a meeting or on an airplane when they are doing this? It makes me want to throw up. Now here I am doing it. Blech.

Last weekend Brian started the Michael Thurmond 6-day body makeover diet. Michael Thurmond is the guy I like from the Extreme Makeover show because he seems to know a lot of about muscles, fitness, losing weight, and diet and approaches it holistically. He promises you will drop one size and kick-start your metabolism. Here is a sample menu for the day:

Breakfast – beef with some egg whites
Mid-morning snack – Chicken
Lunch – Beef with some greens
Mid-afternoon snack – Chicken
Dinner – Beef or Chicken with a handful of blueberries and a ½ cup of rice
After dinner snack – Chicken

I enjoy some meat every now and then but there is no way I could choke down this much meat in 6 days. At first I thought I would try this with Brian but by Sunday night, I was starving and promptly ate a tomato and mozzarella salad. Technically you’re not supposed to do the diet if you’re breastfeeding so thankfully I had an excuse to fall of the wagon in a few hours. Brian stuck with it and ended up losing 5 lbs! Amazing. He said he will do it with me after I wean Ty. I decided that I needed to eat more protein throughout the day so I have two protein shakes with me here at work to have as a mid-morning snack and mid-afternoon snack.

Jack started his terrible two’s with a vengeance last weekend. It is not so much tantrums as it is downright defiance. He says “no” to everything we tell him to do which equates to lots of warnings for a time-out (Supernanny always says give them one warning and the next time they do it, it’s a time-out). We are extremely consistent with following through with the threat so a lot of times, the threat alone works. However, more and more he ends up in time-out. I think he is constantly testing us to see if we are going to follow through. I read somewhere that time-outs shouldn’t be a form of punishment, just a vehicle to move your child away from the circumstance and that if your child perceives that it’s punishment then you should sit there with them! I think that’s a load of crap. It’s partly to remove them from the circumstance but I don’t want it to be fun. I don’t think sitting in a corner for 2 minutes and not liking it is going to damage their little psyches.

Brian and I had our 6th anniversary on February 26. We went to a great little French restaurant called Coup de Tartes which is a BYOB place. This means you can bring your wine and focus on spending your money on food. It was delicious and was interesting to see how people brought their wine in (most had little wine bags) and what they were drinking. It only has 12 tables so you have to make reservations to get a table. Ann baby-sat for us and seemed to have a good time playing with Jack. And he seemed OK that someone he didn’t know was going to be putting him to bed.

I started playing volleyball again. I joined the work league and played my first game on Thursday night. Because Brian’s game overlapped with mine, we had to get a baby-sitter and used a new neighborhood girl who lives across the street. I didn’t get a chance to warm up and my back started seizing on me. I continued to play, ignoring the pain. We won both of our games and I started playing a third but was worried about my back getting worse so I stopped playing. I did get in to see the chiropractor on Friday and he was able to work it out a little bit. It’s still sore in some place. I feel old.

On Friday night I went to the House of Tricks (restaurant) with my mom’s club. This is my mom’s club that I joined when I had Jack and although I don’t get to see the moms very often, we always have a great time when we meet out for dinner. We sat outside and the orange blossoms smelled really good. We were laughing so much the other customers were staring at us. It was 10:30 when we finally left! On Saturday I went to register Jack and Ty for Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) swimming lessons. These are special lessons where you take your child every day for 5 – 6 weeks and they get a 10 minute private lesson. They are very focused on survival swimming—floating on their backs, then on their tummies, and then on their backs again to breathe. Jack quickly learned these skills last year and now he needs a refresher for 2 – 3 weeks. They teach kids as young as 6 – 8 months so I am taking Ty as well. They start June 19. Because of the limited spots and because I needed very specific spots after work, I stood in line for 2 hours! And I got the very last spots after 5 PM so I’m glad I stood in line but it felt kind of silly to do that. What we do as parents! I remember standing in line overnight in college to get a parking space in a coveted garage and the man in front of me was standing there for his college aged daughter. Now that’s ridiculous.

On Saturday afternoon we went to Joe and Jill’s house for dinner. Jill made delicious chicken and mango crepes. The kids all seemed to get along even though they were different ages. Ty and Jill’s daughter Tatum were especially cute hanging out together. Jack managed to crap in his pants and it went all the way up the back. So we had to borrow a shirt and have him run around in his pull up. Fortunately people with kids don’t seem very fazed by these mishaps. We ended up staying later than anticipated (1 hour past Ty’s bed-time!) because we were having such a good time.
Ty and his girlfriend, Tatum
Ty and Tatum in a compromising position




On Sunday I had brunch with Missie. We go to the same place at the same time on Sundays about every month. After eating our regular brunch meals at the Cheesecake Factory, we went through the mall and I got free makeup samples from Origins and $23 worth of hand soap from Bath and Body Works for $10 so I felt like my cavewoman gathering instincts were satisfied. We could have stayed there for hours but I started feeling too guilty for leaving Brian home with the boys since I had so many activities this weekend. I topped off the weekend by seeing “Mamma Mia” at Gammage. That is my all-time favorite Broadway musical and I highly recommend it. Everyone leaves happy and singing. That’s what Broadway musicals should be all about.