Proud

I made my son an omelette a few weeks ago, and he decided it was the best food he'd ever eaten. He's eaten omelettes nearly every morning since then.

Most days, he'd ask me for help cutting it up. Motor skills are a challenge with our little guy, so we try to encourage him to work on them as much as possible. But when he's hungry, I'll break down and cut his food for him. Boy's got to eat.

But I've tried to get him to do it. One day I noticed he ate his entire omelette without asking for help. I was so impressed. Then I  noticed that the knife and fork were spotless. He never used them. He just picked the omelette up with his fingers, like a hamburger or something. 

But I still gave him credit. Even if he didn't do what I expected, he found a solution without asking for help. That's what you do as a parent, especially if your kiddo has special needs. A victory is a victory. 

But then this happened. 

All I did was hand him the omelette and the fork and knife. The rest was all him. I didn't even notice at first what he'd done. And then I did. And I got a big grin on my face, and I told him how proud I was of him. He was grinning too. 

This was a good morning. 

All American

Last night, on July 4th, we seriously had this for dinner.

Hamburgers.

Potato salad.

Corn on the cob.

And watermelon.

I was not wearing a red-white-and-blue straw hat, but I might as well have been.

After the kid went to sleep, we made margaritas. We've been married almost nine years, but it's the first time we ever made margaritas at home. My wife and I both looked at the glass and said "there's a lot of booze in this!" (It was a combination of shock and appreciation.)

A note? Homemade margaritas are delicious. Mrs. B picked up a sack of key limes, so we had fresh squeezed lime juice. AWE-SOME.

A Milestone

I weighed in this morning at 199 pounds.  Woo hoo!!!

I broke out in a big grin when I saw that first digit "1" on the scale.  I'm under 200.  That's big. I don't really know the last time I've been under 200.  

I've lost, officially, 11 pounds since I purchased a scale.  Unofficially, I've probably lost at least 20 pounds since I started this whole endeavor.

My pants are much looser.  My shirts don't have that obnoxious bulge at the waistline anymore.  It's definitely noticeable - my wife's commented on it a couple of times.  

My secrets so far are pretty simple.  I log every single bit of food I stick in my mouth.  I work out on the elliptical at least 30 minutes, at least four times a week.  Every morning I remember, I do 10 pushups and 20 situps.  (I did 15 pushups this morning.  It doesn't seem like much, but it's a big step.)  I've also started doing some very mild weight lifting with our puny little 5 lb. barbells.  

The other big support is my beloved wife.  Mrs. B is also cutting back and she's lost ten pounds so far.  It's so much easier with us both doing it - we can compare notes on foods and check in on each other when we haven't been exercising.  Our conversations have gotten rather odd in restaurants, though.  We both tend to whip our iPod touches (she has one, too) and start comparing calories in all of the dinner entrees, trying to find the one that's the leanest and most appetizing.  

I made my spaghetti sauce the other day with turkey sausage.  We bought small baguettes and roasted garlic instead of buying the premade buttery garlic bread.  We've been eating more meatless meals, more lean meals.  It helps a lot, being able to share the burden and the successes.  

My original goal was to lose 30 pounds.  That's going to happen in the next couple of months.  

When that happens, I'll see how I feel and how much farther I want to go.  But for right now, I'm celebrating.  

Toasted Marshmallow Confusion

I ordered a vanilla latte, and the guy obviously grabbed the wrong bottle of syrup. So I ended up unexpectedly with a toasted marshmallow latte.

The taste was at once bewildering - delightfully pleasurable, and completely disarming at the same time. Every time I took a sip, my mouth would react like "Mmmmm. Wait, what the hell is going on here?" The flavor was that cottony delicious sugar rush of marshmallow, with just a hint of charcoal and caramelization. It was a strong enough flavor to completely overwhelm the taste of coffee. I don't know what kind of chemicals they put into that syrup to generate those sensations, but it's amazingly lifelike.

Drinking a toasted marshmallow out of a cup feels completely wrong to the senses. It's like petting a shadow on the head, or tucking a sunbeam under your pillow, or listening to the pages of a book.

That being said, it was delicious.

And so it begins...

I bought a scale. Yep, finally.

So you're probably wondering - how do I know I'm overweight if I don't own a scale? What was all this sturm-und-dranging about if I don't even know how much I weigh?

I didn't owned a scale for ten years, until now. The truth is that I was relying on doctor's scales, which of course means I was being weighed with clothes on. And my big ol' clodhopper shoes, which probably weigh two pounds each. But still, I was weighing in 10-15 pounds heavier than I had ever been before, even in a doctor's office, even with all my clothes on.

So I bought a scale so that I could actually weigh myself daily and measure my progress. Now I have an actual baseline of where I'm at and how far I need to go.

And like I'm said, I'm serious about this. So I'm 'fessing up right here. This morning, I weighed myself first thing in the morning, right before hopping into the shower.

My actual verified weight, as of 6:00 this morning, was ...

ulp ...

210 pounds.

I want to get down to 190. That's twenty pounds by next June.

My original goal was to lose 30 pounds, back when I thought I weighed more than I did. I'm going to see how quickly I can shed the first 20, and I'll see if I want to go for the extra ten.

___________________________________________

I realize I've started this diet, or whatever, at the worst possible time - right during the overeating holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was relatively good during Thanksgiving, largely aided by the fact that I was sick as a dog with a chest cold. But I was careful with the turkey, doled out my portions and weighed them dutifully on our little kitchen scale, and plugged them into my LoseIt app. At the end of the day, I only went over my goal by only 75 calories. I considered that a good day.

I was under for the week of Thanksgiving by over 400 calories, and that's pretty good. Again, I was sick, but I'll take it. Progress is progress.

This Time, For Real

I weigh more than I've ever weighed in my life. I can no longer accept this. I've got to get serious about losing weight.

I've made some half-hearted, haphazard attempts to lose weight in the past. I've never taken it seriously before. Not really.

I exercise, when I think of it. We own an elliptical machine, so I don't even to go down to a health club to exercise. But I only use it about once a week. Twice a week, on a good week. When I feel like it. When it doesn't feel like too much of a hassle to get up off the couch.

I've pretended to watch my portions before, but not really. I'll skimp at lunch, only to serve myself an extra scoop of ice cream on dessert. I'll open a bag of tortilla chips and just eat handful after handful, not even thinking about how many calories I'm cramming in my mouth. One handful just leads to another, and then another.

I eat seconds for dinner, just about every night. I finish the leftovers on Oliver's plate. If there's an extra spoonful of mashed potatoes in the pan, I'll finish it off.

I went to the doctor last week for a freak injury. They took my weight, and I discovered I'm twenty pounds heavier than what's listed on my driver's license.

I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect that. I thought I'd been watching what I eat. I thought I was doing all right. I was wrong.

And the thing is, I knew it. I'd been denying the truth even as it stared me straight in the face. I've gained weight around my waist. A noticeable amount of weight. I can't fit into pants I wore a year ago. I had to buy new pants in a larger size when I went back to work in August. There are few things more humiliating than realizing, while buying pants, that you are no longer the size that you thought you were.

I have more asthma flareups now. There's a connection. I'm carrying too much weight. I'm having pain in my feet now. There might be a connection there, too.

I can't chase Oliver around the park for ten minutes without getting winded. I HATE that.

So I'm getting serious now. I'm using a program on my iPod touch called LoseIt! to track my daily calories and what I'm burning from exercise. (That has been a fascinating and humbling experience. More on that soon.)

I've worked out on the elliptical twice in the last three days. I started a small additional exercise routine - situps and pushups every morning. Right now, it's only ten of each, and I'm sure that I look awful doing them. But it's something. It's a start.

I want to lose thirty pounds by next summer. I'm not going to post my weight here, in order to preserve a bit of my dignity. But that's my goal. Thirty pounds, a pound a week. (And no, I don't own a scale. I'll take care of that soon.)

I'll keep you posted as to my progress on this blog. If I go more than a week without talking about it, remind me. This is serious this time. I have to get myself down to a dignified weight. I have to do this, for my sake, for my health, for Oliver and for Mrs. B. I have to do this.

"Julie and Julia" and Me

This is going to be a little bit self-indulgent, so bear with me. I just saw a preview for Julie & Julia and I got unexpectly choked up.

I'll explain. Julie Powell started her Julie/Julia project as a Salon blog, around the same time I was starting up my original blog. I feel a kinship to her, even though we've never met and for all I know, she's never even looked at my blog. She was one of us, along with Meg and Patia and the Grumpy Girl and Phil and Nancy and the guy who did Fried Green Al-Qaedas Virtual Occoquan.

And then Julie exploded into a huge phenomenon. I don't think I knew at the time how big it had gotten, but I knew she had gotten to a level that most of us hadn't and probably weren't.

But that's was cool. I'm proud of her, even though, again, nothing whatsoever at all to do with her success. I can't wait to see the movie. And when in the trailer, they showed a quick shot of her computer with the old blog banner (albeit a completely different blogging service), I got a bit verklempt.

So congrats, Julie. I feel a little like the kid who used to play playground basketball with Michael Jordan before he became Michael Jordan. But I'm thrilled that it's come this far, and hope you're having all kinds of success and wish you nothing but more.

P.S. Oddly enough, I just looked up the old blog, and stumbled across this article about the movie. Apparently, there's a bit of controversy about the way her blog is depicted in the movie. Salon's Kerry Lauerman is quoted.

Our Little Punster

Oliver was eating strawberry shortcake earlier, and taking an eternity to eat. As usual.

I mentioned to Mrs. B what a gift he had for stretching out a meal.

Oliver looked up, and then did the strangest thing. He took a strawberry in each hand and held them out as far as his arms could stretch, in opposite directions.

"What are you doing, Oliver?" we asked.

"Stretching out my meal."

The laughter could be heard for miles. I think my little boy just made his first pun.

Ice Cream Puddles, Anyone?

I think we may have accidentally killed our refrigerator last night.

What we know is this: last night, the fridge was running. Last night, one of us stuffed some things in the top shelf of the freezer compartment - behind which lives a fan that apparently runs the whole dadblasted thing.

Great big refrigerator. Leetle tiny fan.

Well, something happened and the little cheap plastic wall separating the fan from damage got caved in, and the fan was blocked or stopped or damaged.

We woke up this morning to a dead fridge, and puddles of water and black oil on the floor. We did the appropriate thing - we flipped out. I ran out to get a cooler and some ice. We saved everything we could - which was mostly condiments and cheese. (This USDA fact sheet proved to be a great asset.) I assumed the fridge had just croaked overnight and called the landlord to let him know that it was a dead parrot.

While I was unpacking the freezer, I noticed the caved-in panel. I moved the broken plastic panel away from the fan and whirrr! It started working again! Miracle of miracles! Saints be praised! We let it get down to temp again and jubilantly went out to buy some foodstuffs.

When we returned home, I unloaded the cooler and our brand new foodstuffs back into the fridge.

And then ... I noticed how warm the fridge was. And I noticed more oil leaking out onto the floor.

And then, Oliver said to me, "what daddy doing?"

"Daddy's going downstairs to curse."

Apparently, when the fan's running, it works fine. When the fan's off, it's not retaining cold. Fuckity.

So tonight, all of our cold stuff is sitting in a cooler on our back porch. The landlord's been called again. Hopefully, 1) we'll have a fresh refrigerator by Monday, and 2) the landlord doesn't see fit to charge us for breaking the fridge.

I don't really think that second part is either likely or legal. My guess is that it was damaged already, and that it was a matter of time before it died. It's just a little weird that moving a few frozen foods around would kill a perfectly healthy fridge, don'cha think? Anyway, I've got the Tenants' Union on speed dial just in case.