Wet Feet

Oi, the Differences Abound

I am almost halfway through Miriam's first year. Can you believe it?

I was terrified to leave Naomi when she was this age. Plus I didn't want to. The first time I left her for more than a few hours, or at bedtime, she was 20 months old. When she didn't take a bottle, I patted myself on the back for having such a smart baby who wouldn't compromise on what she needed. I was so conflicted about forcing the issue with the bottle that I stopped trying.

It didn't seem worth it to me to keep offering the bottle even though I didn't want to leave her. I tell moms at LLL who feel pressured to make their babies take bottles, it's perfectly okay not to give your baby a bottle, ever, if you don't want to. Eventually, when you have the desire to be out without the baby, you'll work things out.

When Miriam started to balk at the bottle a few weeks ago during my weekly tennis outing, there was no tender inner conflict. After 3 and a half years of 24 hour on call, I am ready for a break. Miriam is going to be a much more independant baby than Naomi was. I am not going to be tethered to bedtime this time. I might even leave her overnight with someone else on occasion before she turns four. Tonight, the fourth time I've left her in Josh and my dad's care at bedtime, she took the bottle without complaint, and fell asleep in bed.

Experience has taught me that there is room for moderation and experimentation. When Naomi was small I only saw slippery slopes all around me: my choices would lead to other choices which would lead me to compromise my parenting values. I thought if I chose to put her in a (gasp!) crib for the first part of the night, I would have to give up cosleeping. Or if I fed her food before nursing her I would hasten early weaning. Or if I switched to cloth I could never go back to disposables. I'm not sure why I was so rigid, I can only guess that the rules of the game were so murky, and the consequences of being wrong were so disastrous, being rigid in my choices was the only way I could cope.

90 degrees in the shade with no breeze

All of a sudden, summer is upon us. On days like today I have the urge to cut off all my hair, which is already pretty short. It's sticking to my forehead and getting in my eyes. I hate it. I want it gone.

If I had clippers right now I would totally do it. My head is so damn hot.

Why Shangri-La at all?

There are plenty of people who would love to be a size 16 rather than a size 24, or whatever. It's all just persepective. My cousin, newly engaged, remarked that she has about 15,000 pounds to lose before the wedding. To me, that's crazy, she's thinner than I could ever be. To her, she's as heavy as she can remember, she doesn't feel like herself.

I could love myself at this weight, if it felt like a healthy weight for me. But it's not: I weigh what I weigh because I eat froot loop marshmallow bars and ice cream more than I should.

Usually, indulgences beget more indulgences. It's a slippery slope from trying one cookie to eating a whole bag. On this diet, I can just have one (or two) cookies. That part is truly amazing. For once, a cookie is just a cookie, not a gateway drug or a pit stop on the way to scooping Kozy Shack out of the tub with your fingers at 2 AM.

I am still eating a lot of comfort food, mostly because I can. If I haven't lost much weight, this is the reason why. I also wonder if I'm subconciously putting the breaks on actual weight loss because I'm afraid to lose too much too quickly, thereby throwing me into the lifestyle of being "hot". I don't know how to handle attention or compliments, as those who have complimented me recently can probably tell. When I was last thin (about three years ago), I actively avoided walking down streets with large construction sites, especially at lunch time (which is hard to do in an old city that's constantly being refurbished). I hated feeling like I was on display. I gained the weight back pretty quickly.

Remember that movie with Gwyneth Paltrow where she wore a fat suit? She talked about some of the experiences she had walking around in public or on the set as a fat woman. "people wouldn't even look at me; they wouldn't even make eye contact with me at all. It was really awful." and "It was very different. You know, when I was on set, I felt no kind of sexual energy from men, you know. Because normally, I would still have all of these tiny little clothes on the whole time, and then to come on set the other way with the suit on and felt almost lonely."  Being conscious of sideways glances and sexual energy when it's not something you're used to (or when you have confusion about sexual obligation and entitlement) feels like trying to wield something with way more power than you need. Like driving a Miata when you are used to a Ford Escort.

So, the diet

FYI: Seth Roberts has a blog. Also, this link will tell you all you ever wanted to know about oils.

Two weeks on the diet.

Some bullets from Shangri-La:

1. I think the "diet" label is actually a misnomer. It's more of a hack to use in the context of a lifestyle change, kind of like an antidepressant to go with your therapy. Just doing it by itself has lead me to long days of inadequate nutrition. I'll eat what's in front of me when I finally do get hungry late in the day, whether it's a salad or Vanilla Chai Ice Cream. And I'm satisfied with much less. But there have been days where it finally dawns on my at 3PM that the reason I'm so cranky and my milk seems so low is that I haven't eaten yet that day. It's easy to forget to eat. Too easy. I find myself gravitating toward more planned, structured meals, because then at least I won't forget to eat.

2. Things taste different. I bought a bag of fresh spinach at the farmer's market, and I ate about half of it yesterday directly from the bag, like chips. I ate the rest wrapped in ham and turkey slices. Before this, I had never even eaten spinach, not even in a fancy salad with vinagrette dressing. I always ate around it. Now, it is very flavorful and tasty and crunchy/chewy.

3. All my life I've been striving to ingore or fight the signals my body sends me (and hunger is just the beginning). Now, my body isn't sending me signals in order to correct some wacky imbalance or stock up for the next potato famine, so I can work with it instead of against it.

4. I love a little poop talk between friends, and I have to say, there is a pleasing regularity to my digestive funcitons now that I'm drinking oil at the same time every day.

5. I found myself staring at the ice cream case at the grocery store yesterday in a daze of indecision. Comfort food is beginning to lose it's appeal.

6. Even if it stops working, I might continue to drink oil. It's an easy, fast way to get some nutrition in the morning. I feel healthy and strong. I don't need a caffiene jolt to wake me up anymore; in fact, I often forget to drink my coffee. My skin feels better too.

Drunk Blogging

I went out to a bar tonight with a group of women from a mom’s group that formed shortly after all of our three year olds were born. Can you believe this is the first time we’ve all been out together without the kids? We can’t. We have vowed to do it again, with frequency.

I had a celebrity sighting, sort of: Glen from Real World Los Angeles, from sometime in the early nineties. He’s married, for all of you who were counting the years until you were legal and he was available, like I was. I was sitting there in with my Big Daddy IPA (toe-curlingly hoppy, like I like it), and he looked so familiar, and for a second I thought he might have been someone I fucked, back in the day when I did such things. Then I remembered him from TV, and it was a big relief not to have to relive some embarrassing memory. Oh, and he still has the long hair, like it’s his trademark, he probably would never be recognized without it. That’s kind of sad, don’t you think, to look exactly the same as you did way back in 1993, when they brought you in to fill the shoes left by that sexual harasser stand-up comic guy they kicked to the curb? Dude, cut your hair. You’re a grownup now. Grunge is over.

A Sunday

There is a lovely little patch of nature- a creek with forested hiking trails about five miles long- a  short drive from where we live. In a spontaneous fit of family togetherness (or something vaguely similar), we went there Sunday. And we took pictures.

What's Miriam saying there? "Napping is for pussies." Naomi brought me those flowers. They smelled interesting, spicy. I have no idea what they are.

You can kind of see my nursing technique in this picture. There's a scarf that usually hangs from the rings, here you can see it draped across my chest. I can't be bothered to hike up my shirt for coverage most of the time, and I'm far enough into the alphabet that nursing out the top is...conspicuous. Even for a brazen NIPer like me. So I use that scarf, which is also used for...everything you'd expect a scarf in vicinity of a five month old baby to be used for. At least it's not a tea towel.

Truly addicted slingers will see that I'm wearing a Zolo ring sling. Having always been a pouch girl,  it surprised me to like a ring sling so much. I'm totally converted. I remembered that the reason I stuck with the Maya so long instead of getting a pouch was because I couldn't find one with a tail and a pocket. Also, I don't have to fuss as much with the Zolo as I did the Maya, there's no slipping through the rings at all.

Sling or no, Miriam the Napless was uncharacteristically grumpy. She usually looks at her sister with a mixture of awe and laughter, but you can see this is not the case here.

(you could pack for a transatlantic cruise in the bags under my eyes. Seriously. Tired much?)

Skipping off to Shangri-La

So, it's working.

I'm drinking 3 tablespoons of canola oil first thing in the morning. And, believe it or not, it's not as gross as it sounds. I've done wierder, grosser things in the name of weight loss. Canola oil seems to have a teeny tiny taste, more of an aftertaste, and the olive oil I had at my parents' house seems to be truly flavorless. I'm going to switch to olive oil as soon as I can get some. My market down the street only carries tiny bottles of gourmet extra virgin, while I need a giant jug of the flavorless extra light.

I first noticed a change in appetite on day 3 of the SLD. For the first two days, I ate whatever I wanted. I pigged out of all my sugary favorites. I had this whole plan about how I was going to track my own hunger and food and blog it all for you, but babies pooped and preschoolers shrieked and nothing got remembered long enough to be written down. Sorry about that.

So, it's been a week now. I am getting used to oil in the morning, and the, um, digestive side effects of drinking oil have subsided. I don't get hungry until early afternoon, and when I do, it's mildly hungry, not ravenously-eat-the-whole-house  kind of hungry. I think because I'm lactating I'm going to be hungrier than the average Shagri-la dieter. I think I'm losing weight, just judging from the way my clothes fit. 

From the comments:

"It sounds nuts. And yes I think I'm going to try it. The fact that it's called the Shangri-La diet kinda cracked me up...because if you've ever read Voltaire's "Candide", Shangri-La is the place everyone is dying to go but no one can ever quite get there. My suspicion is that, like all diet books, it'll work great for some people, work not at all for others, and for everybody else it'll work for a little while and then they'll give up."

Exactly. And thanks for the literary reference for Shangri-La. I was smart enough to know there was one, but not smart enough to remember what the significance was.

Hang around the low-carbers long enough, and you'll probably hear about your golden shot. The first time you do low carb is your best chance to lose the wieght, because subsequent tries won't yeild the same dramatic initial weight loss. Nobody could ever explain that, metabolically it should be the same each time you cut out sugars. Now it makes sense: the first time you go on the Atkins diet, you are eating so many new foods, learning new recipes, trying new flavorings, tasting things differently sans sugar. But then it doesn't work so well, if at all, the tenth time you start the "steak and diet coke plan" as my mom once called it.

Our bodies are smart when it comes to keeping us fat. Fat is stability, fat is insurance to our legacy bodies. This is a great little trick, that's for sure, but I find it hard to believe that my fat-loving body is going to stay outwitted for very long.

Another surprising element has surfaced for me in doing this diet: I'm afraid of being thin. Being a little overweight is a good place to hide. Fat people, much like middle aged women, are invisible to many. Being looked at again might take some getting used to. Fortunately the mom thing is a good invisibility device, although not as good as being fat.

I also wanted to write about emotional eating, but y'all are just going to have to wait, because I've already lost this post twice and now the baby's up. Damn.

I was warned about this, wasn't I?

Where have I been? Ebay.

My head is full of diapers and auction times and bid amounts. I knew the reason I avoided cding for so long: the joys of competitive shopping would carry me away, and I'd end up buying 5,000 diapers just because I could get a good deal on them.

Some of you may have seen the post that went up this morning by mistake. I set it ahead last week to give myself time to finish it, but with the diaper/knitting obsession over here  it just never happened. The subject matter is a bit darker than shopping and knitting. It involves typing up a morose and overly wordy jounal entry from 1999. My mind seeks more pleasurable things. But now that it's dangled out there I'll finish it. I'll be home a lot anyway, waiting for package delivery.

Right now, I am wondering if I can make it to the yarn store (a soaker is 3/4 finished, but I need more yarn!) and back in time to make a last minute bid on some fancy hemp fitteds.

I think I'm in LOVE

You know how it feels better to wear cute underwear? It feels good to know the baby's got  something cute on underneath too.

The SugarPeas hemp diapers I got on Ebay came today (gently used and dyed by previous owners). As soon as I got the package, I ripped the pampers off the baby and snapped one on. Aren't they beautiful? Aren't they trim? Aren't they colorful? Aren't they perfectly washed and broken in? The only thing they lack is a microfleece liner on the doubler, and I can do that myself.

Next to the baby's butt here is the soaker. I know, I know, it's not really a soaker. But it is the yarn and needles I will be using to make her a soaker, as soon as I clean up all the mess the baby happens to be hiding in that picure.

CDing adds an element of novelty and joy to the mundane task of diaper changing. No more endless parade of Sesame Street characters. Now I can think about the hands that made the diaper, the deal I got on it, and how ingenious the design is, whenever I change the baby.

I sense an addiction coming on.

Milestones

Early mobility seems to run in our family. Naomi took her first steps before nine months, and Miriam is following in her teetering footsteps. She's already rolling over both ways, sitting without support, scooching backward, and getting up on all fours. Not bad for a baby whose mommy forgot all about tummy time until last week.

When Naomi was a baby, people would widen their eyes and bemoan the fate of a mommy with an early walker. They're so busy! They get into everything! They careen into walls! You'll never sit down again!

I have to say that Naomi walking early was really good for me. She got a lot more excercise, and she slept better for it. She was always so miserable when she was trying to master a physical skill, the relief of her walking mitigated any wall-careening inconveniences for me. Still, I was kind of hoping Miriam would be one of those low-key sit and play babies. Looks like she's not.

The best thing about having an early walker is not having to do that wondering..."is there something wrong with her legs? Is she jsut content to sit? When should I get her evaluated?" It's nice to be able to check something off and not have to worry about it.

I realized this when Naomi was 18 months...and still hadn't learned to say more than a few garbled words. "Is she talking yet? Is there something wrong with her hearing? Maybe she has that brain disorder so and so had..."

Everything turned out just fine, of course. Naomi turned into one of those kids who went from speaking a few words to using full sentences in about a week. Like she knew how to talk, but just didn't have anything important to say.