About a month ago on a whim, I pre-ordered a video game. I'd never been one to fall victim to pre-release hype for game systems, but I was heavily into Project Apple Bottom, and anything that looked like it had a chance in hell of motivating me sounded good.

We got our Wii Fit on Tuesday, and my husband and I can't stop playing it. I'm not sure if it's because we're having a shit ton of fun playing it, because we're highly competitive, or because we were embarassed about our "Wii Fit Age." It's probably a combo of all of those factors, but the Wii Fit Age thing really fired me up, and I think it fired my husband up as well.

When you set yourself up on the Wii Fit, you perform a body test. It uses your height, weight, BMI and the results of a few exercises to determine your fitness age. My husband hasn't exercised since 1997, so it didn't surprise either of us that his fitness age was older than his actual age. However, we didn't expect it to be THAT much older. Now, the man can't stay off the balance board.

I've been pretty proud of my progress since I started Project Apple Bottom. Some might say I've gotten a little cocky about it. For the first time in a long time, I'm not mortified by my own body. More important, I'm actually getting more confident in my own strength. I've built up some actual muscle mass, and I can do most exercises my trainers throw at me without a lot of pain or tears or puking. I couldn't say that five months ago.

Well, leave it to some stupid fucking video game to put my ego back in check. I thought that I would test at my actual age or slightly younger, just because I've been working my ass off six days a week for the past four months. Ha! I'll turn 33 in August. The Wii measured my Fit Age at 36 on Wednesday. I'm going to blame the wine. I did the body test again today, and my Fit Age is down to what will soon be my actual age.

So, my new goal is not to wear a size four, bounce quarters off my ass, or be able to bench my husband. Oh no. My new goal is to reach 25 on my Wii Fit Age. Anyone want to bet?

If you haven't seen the Wii Fit, here's a trailer I found on YouTube. I know it's a promotional video, but, frankly, it's more fun than they make it look in the video.

Labels: Exercise, Project Apple Bottom, Soul Mate, Wii Fit

A former co-worker bought My Little Sunshine his "Snuggles" when I was pregnant. Sunshine will turn four in August, and he still sleeps with "Snuggles" and "Daddy Snuggles" every night. These guys are little "lovies," very small blankets with lion heads on them. After a very bad incident in which Snuggles got left at daycare over night, we purchased a backup and a backup to the backup. The backup became Daddy Snuggles, a crucial part of our bedtime comfort routine.

My child latched onto this comfort item so much that I bought one for nearly every new mom in my life, especially those whose babies would be going to daycare. That's why I was even more mortified to see this recall from the Consumer Product Safety Commission in my inbox this morning. This is not the brand of "lovie" that I have bought everyone I know, so that's some measure of comfort, but I have seen these little guys around the momma-and-baby circle.


Recalled Blankets from Douglas Co. (Click to enlarge)

If you have any of these Li'l' Snugglers by Douglas Co., take them away and add them to the list of the million and one things that could kill your kids. Apparently, the satin can come off of these guys and pose a strangulation hazard. Not a very comforting comfort object.

More information on the recall can be found here.

Labels: Toy recall

I can't believe it's been two years. Some days, we laugh when we think about you. Some days, we cry when we think about you. But, even now, we think about you every day and know we are all better people because you were in our lives.

I hope wherever you are now, they have two-for-one chicken breasts, two-for-one beers, and a weekly savings flyer. I hope wherever you are, there's no struggling, no tumor, and no pain. I hope where you are now, there's all-you-can-handle 80s rock, wings and porch sittin'. And I hope that you still have our backs, because we sure as hell still have yours.

We love you, buddy.

Labels: Gulfman

I had a great Mother's Day with my boys. I got to sleep in (the best present ever). I woke up to the sound of my little man walking up the stairs saying, "Mommy! Wake up! It's Mudder's Day!" It was the sweetest sound ever. I pretended to be asleep when the boys came in, so My Little Sunshine could "wake me up" with my Mudder's Day hugs.

We had a fantastic weekend, which included a roadtrip to the best zoo in our state. My kid loves animals so much. Tthere's very little that brings him more joy. That means there's very little that brings me more joy, since there's nothing in the world like seeing that smile and hearing those little squeals.

I also took a huge fall off the Bad Food Wagon. If I had a sponsor, her phone would have been blowing up this weekend. I went off Project Apple Bottom on Thursday, and I'm just getting back on this morning. I ate very badly, and the only exercise I got was walking from the Reptile House to the Meerkats. My final Mudder's Day present was a pint of Ben and Jerry's, which I ate all by myself in five minutes flat. It's like crack, I tell ya. Crack.

My big Mudder's Day present was a fitness watch, complete with a heart rate monitor. That will allow me to see how many calories I burn during my workouts. I think I work out with a very high level of intensity, but this little tool will tell me for sure. Not only will this help me stay focused on my goals, it will also help me gracefully fall off the Bad Food Wagon every now and then. If I really need some Ben and Jerry's therapy, I can make sure that I burn more calories than I consume in that Little Pint of Pure Joy. That will make me feel less guilty about indulging. I also won't feel like I'm depriving myself of all things yummy if I can do this every now and then without thinking that I'm a weak and pathetic person. Now, I'll have The Math to back me up.

Even though I took a head-first dive off the wagon this weekend, I have to say that am certainly better off physically this Mudder's Day than the past four. Four Mudder's Days ago, I was hugely pregnant with My Little Sunshine--I mean Oompa Loompa hugely pregnant. I'm a short girl (5'2"), and that baby didn't have anywhere to go but out. That's not to mention the fact that I gained a baby in each ass cheek and thigh. In all, I think there were really five babies in there. I gained enough weight for there to be five babies in there.

Three Mudder's Days ago, I wasn't ginormous, but I wasn't Twiggy either. I had lost all the baby weight, but I was back to my Pre-Baby-Slightly-Pudgy stage. Life sorta got in the way for a while after that. I put all my focus on caring for my new family and didn't focus on caring for myself at all. It took a lot of soul searching to accept that caring for myself didn't mean that I wasn't caring for my family. In fact, I learned I could better take care of my family if I took some time out each day to care for myself as well. It took me a while to get there, but I'm glad I finally did. I'm healthier and happier, and I think my entire family is healthier and happier because of it.

One funny thing thing that happened this Mudder's Day...
Just after I got out of bed, My Little Sunshine came over to me and said (pointing at my leg), "Oh, Mommy! What happened? What's that? Does it Hurt?" "No, honey," I said. "That's called a spider vein. It just means Mommy's old." Sunshine grew increasingly concerned as he said, "Is it ugly, Mommy?" Um. Yeah. Total unfiltered honesty. "Yes, baby," I said. "It is kinda ugly." "Oh. Well, I can make it better. Let me put a Band Aid on it," Sunshine said with a smile. After much coordinating, Sunshine covered up my ugly spot with one of his bandages. Happy Mudder's Day to me.

Labels: family, Motherhood, My Little Sunshine, Project Apple Bottom

I had the cheapest therapy session of my life after we put My Little Sunshine to bed tonight. I can't say I have it all sorted out now, but I can say I'm in better shape than I was earlier today when I thought it might be time to start plopping down a hundred dollars an hour again.

For the past few months, working out has been my therapy. It's been pretty effective for the most part. I've been sweating out my stress and shedding a few pounds at the same time. Not a bad deal. I've been pretty centered since I started working toward a goal and achieving small milestones along the way. This focus has served as an excellent distraction for the rest of my life, which is in a very uncomfortable state of limbo for a control freak like me.

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Everything that's up in the air in my life sort of came crashing down on me with a suffocating weight. I started mulling everything over and over again, hoping for some Eureka! moment that never comes. That usually leads to me over-reacting about little things and often to the Belly Button Cancer paranoia. In the course of the eight hours I should have been sleeping, I decided there are at least two ways that I might be dying at this very moment. I know, Lisa Loeb, I've been dying since the day I was born, but that doesn't make me feel any better about whatever it is that will kill me at some unknown moment in time.

Since I didn't get any sleep and, in turn, worked myself into a ridiculous frenzy of paranoia and perplexing life questions, I tried to work my ass off at Spazzercise this morning. I tried to dance better, jump higher, punch harder. I went up a pound in my hand weights. I sweated my ass off, but I didn't get my groove back (probably 'cause that bitch Stella stole it), and in the end I left feeling as defeated as I did when I got there.

I drove myself to my favorite locally-owned coffee shop, where I was happy to see "Double Nut" written on the dry erase board as the special. I love nuts. I love double nut anything. I especially love a guilt-free skinny sugar free double nut latte. It not only gives me my groove back; it also gives me a little zen, if only for a moment. When I pulled up to the window, I was even happier to see Thirty-Something-Brooding-Intellectual Guy. He makes the best coffee. He might give you a look like there's no way you can possibly understand the impact of your annual coffee purchases on the global economy. He might even think your SUV-driving-Spazzercise-going-highlight and lowlight-having ass could never grasp Marxism, but, damn, he makes a great latte. The foamy concoction was, as always, fantastic, but it did little to calm the chaos in my mind.

I got home and got to work on the garage, thinking that somehow, some way, if I could just get myself back inside my rundown (sorry for the producer speak), I could get my ass back on track. I methodically went through two boxes of random shit that needed to be sorted as my iPod blared in my ears. By the time I paused for lunch, I had taken exactly zero of the edge off, but I was a couple steps closer to my garage sale on Saturday, so it wasn't a total loss.

Over lunch, I proceeded to absolutely terrify my husband about the state of my existence. It's really not as bad as he thinks it is, but I'm not going to pretend like the way I'm behaving right now is normal. As if I wasn't already a bit off, the guilt I felt over worrying him pushed me closer to the edge.

I spent the rest of the day trying to get a freaking grip. My husband cooked a fantastic dinner, we ate watermelon outside with the boy, and then started playing some three-year-old version of a game the guys used to play in college. "Peak" somehow became "Pie Pook." Our son is really into rhyming and making up his own words in very elaborate fashion, and the "Sky Hook" shot became "Pie Pook" before we knew it. Peak is a game that during our college years involved a ball, a roof (or stairs), and copious amounts of beer. Tonight, it involved a ball, a roof, and a lot of family silliness. I watched the boys play while I systematically dismantled a dead tree in our backyard. My husband saw me breaking off branches and at one point told me that I was wasting my time and that it could easily be taken care of with a chainsaw. I gave him the "Humor Me" look, and he left me alone. Within twenty minutes, I had that little fucker torn down into a stack of foot-long twigs, and somehow I felt about twelve inches better.

By the time we put the kid to bed, however, I was back in that lock-jaw state of tension where I might either start yelling or crying, depending on the way the light hit the tip of my nose. Instead of watching the first twenty minutes of American Idol live, I decided to work out in the yard for an hour to try to recapture my Tree Beater Zen, and then catch up on the show on the DVR.

So, I took my clippers and went after the fence line in my backyard. It has been a while, as in probably before my son was born, that I did this. The Little Rose Bush That Could is still budding, in spite of my complete lack of attention, the aphids eating away at its leaves, and the honeysuckle that has been trying to choke the life out of it. I chopped up about six feet of evil vines and then worked to free that poor rose bush. Something about freeing this little guy from the grips of insanity translated to my feeble mind as well. The calm that came over me was not enough to tidy up my Life Rundown, but it was enough to hold back the crying or screaming fit for another day. At this point, that's good enough, and I didn't even have to pay a hundred dollars for that precious hour.

Labels: Canada move, family, State of Mind

On Saturday, Barack Obama's campaign will launch a 50-state voter registration drive to get more new voters involved in the presidential election. Click here to find out how you can get involved.

Labels: Barack Obama, Politics, Presidential election