Take a Stand Baby!

So, apparently my husband, who has lost about well, I don't know, quite a bit of weight since I met him, has gained body fat. At least that's what his body fat test that the military administers has determined. He used to wear a 42 inch waist pant. Now, he barely fills out a 38. He has to lose 30 pounds or 4 inches around his waist to meet standards. 5 years ago, he met standards in his 42 inch waist. For those who would like to say standards have changed, No. Not so much. For those of you who would like to say a 38 inch waist is still a Fat Bastard. Please send me your address so that.. wait, that could be mistaken as a threat. Nevermind. My husband is NOT fat. In my opinion, he never has been.. BUT he is now a very muscular (almost scary) hunk of man. How in the world the military has determined that this:




is too fat to be in the military, I'll never guess... Especially when I know there are some VERY ROUND people that pass just fine. How is this you say? The military uses a very scientific method of computing body fat. They measure your height. Then they measure your weight. Divide. Yay. The taller you are, the more fucked you are (excuse my language parents!). The taller you are the skinnier and sicklier you have to be. If, however you are 5'8" you can be nice and "thick" without any body fat issues whatsoever. In this photo, my husband probably is weighing in around 240 to 250. He is 6'5" and is no skinny wimpy twig. (yuck, I wouldn't have married him if he was!) If you fail the height/weight test, they do what is called a "rope and choke." They measure your neck and your waist. Then divide. That highly scientific method is the back up for the height/weight test. They currently do not accept caliper or other body fat computation methods. So, in otherwords, my husband (who in this picture has 40% body fat) needs to lose 30 pounds or 4 inches. How can he achieve that? Very simple. Give up food. All food. Yup. Perhaps liquids would also be a good thing to get rid of? He simply can't exercise more the guy works out every free second he has. I know, becasue he buys all his TV shows through itunes so that he can watch while he rides the bike, works on the elliptical trainer, etc. What can you do? Write your congressman and tell them that the way they compute body fat is antiquated. They need to adjust the height/weight or rope/choke standards for those people who are very tall.

Does the picture look like someone who needs to join a mandatory weight loss program? What about someone who should be reprimanded for his weight? I think not.

See this for more information about the standards in the military regarding weight, etc.

Projectile V.... Well, maybe you should read the disclaimer

**Disclaimer** this post contains graphic descriptions of vomit. If you have a weak stomach, perhaps you should pass up this post.

I guess making it to 11 months, five days fourteen hours thirty-one minutes before having a real, honest-to-goodness projectile vomit is pretty amazing. I don't know what caused it, but this evening directly after dinner the baby chucked more white chunky sticky fluid than I have ever seen in my entire life. All over me. All over the couch. All over him. All over the dog. All over the living room floor. All. Over. Everywhere. Then, trying to transfer said baby into the bathtub (luckily I had already started his evening bath) left a nice trail of chunky spew. The dog (Kleenex) also left a nice chunk trail all the way out the door into the backyard. Which meant that the mess was also transferred to the dining room and the hallway leading to the bathroom.

We had just finished dinner (we ate in the Living Room for the first time in months.. of course!). I pulled him out of the high chair, and was letting him rest on my shoulder. He sat up and then it came. and came. and came. and came. and dripped. and came. Surprisingly, I didn't join in on all of the fun. I just sat there in shock. When the fountain finally ceased spouting, I dashed into the bathroom. Mom got the lucky job of cleaning up the living room while I stripped my clothes off. Dad watched the baby in the tub while I got myself clean enough to actually clean the baby without following his example. I finally got the baby cleaned, then I had to wash the dog. Oh the mess. He's in bed now. I suppose I'll be up all night waiting for him to turn into a human fountain again, listening for the sounds of him choking. Great. Another sleepless night. What a wonderful thing being a mother is. I'm sure he's fine and somehow he overate, or something just didn't go right. Who knows. That's the mystery. He has no fever, no symptoms of anything else whatsoever. So, I'll watch him and hope that we don't need to cancel his birthday party this weekend. That would NOT be cool. I'd really just postpone until November, but it still wouldn't be fun. I ordered a cake and a balloon bouquet to attach to his high chair and everything.

The good news in all of this? I got two, count them TWO showers in one day!! Normally I'm lucky to get one shower.. and today.. I got TWO...

*Oh, and no matter WHAT my husband says.. The few teeny tiny spit up incidents we had (three total I believe) when he was home were no where near the caliber of this vomit explosion. I am eternally grateful that he wasn't here to witness, and that my mother was around because 1) If Dad had been here, I would have had two messes to clean up. Dad would have had to run outside or for another bathroom to contain his manly spew. 2) My mother helped clean up cleaned up the mess that wasn't attached to the dog, the baby or myself. She spent her evening scrubbing carpet and couch and dining room floor. Thanks Mom!

Flowers wilt...

...but Chocolate is ooooh sooooo goooood. He was going to send me something healthier, but decided against it. It doesn't bode well to send a "health food" basket to a woman who's worried about her weight. It just reinforces that perhaps she should be worried about it. Who knew my husband was smart enough to figure that out?















I calculated the fat and calories contained in this basket. There is so much chocolate, it's disgusting:

Item	# Servings in package	Calories Per Serving	Fat Per Serving	Total Calories	Total Fat
White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Popsicle	1	240	15	240	15
Sausalito Cookies	8	140	8	1120	64
Dark Chocolate Rochet	1	160	10	160	10
Ghiradhelli Squares	3.5	220	13	770	45.5
Lindor White Chocolate Truffles	4	230	19	920	76
Lindor Dark Chocolate Truffles	4	210	19	840	76
Ferrot Rochet	1	220	15	220	15
Dark Chocolate Popsicle	1	250	15	250	15
Dark Chocolate Candy Bar	4.7	199	10.8	935.3	50.76
Russel Stover Candy Bar	2	210	13	420	26
Dark Chocolate Candy Bar	4.7	199	10.8	935.3	50.76
Lindor Truffle Bar	2.5	240	18	600	45
Russel Stover Ganache Bar	3.5	200	12	700	42
Totals:	41 servings	Ave Cals: 209	Ave Fat: 14g	8111	531g

That's a grand total of 8111 calories and 531 grams of fat. Yummy, yummy yummy yummy fat. At least it's yummy now.. I'm not sure how "yummy" I will think it is when it's glued to my hips, thighs, butt and stomach!

*ps. I have NO freakin' clue what the heck is up with my table. I didn't specify for it to be that tall, but whatever. I'm not an HTML writer after all.

Deflated

Since I’ve accomplished my mission of weaning the baby, something terrible has happened. I have been deflated. The part of me that was necessary for feeding the baby has disappeared. I wouldn’t care so much if it didn’t make the part of me necessary for carrying a fetus seem, well, so large all of a sudden. When I was a bit more *ahem* endowed, my stomach didn’t seem so out of proportion. I wasn’t thoroughly thrilled with the extra inches, but they were okay. After all, I have a beautiful toddler to show for them. However, that was in comparison to the larger version of me. I’m not quite so pleased with the new ratio of breast to stomach I have going on. In fact, I think I look a lot like this:

That isn’t so bad, until you realize that the person on the cover of this magazine is pregnant. I am not, nor do I plan to be pregnant again in the very near future. So it is a bit depressing that I could stand next to someone who is, and have people trying to guess who is further along. Once again I’m in limbo.. “Is she pregnant, or is she just carrying a few extra pounds?” I look just like I did about 20 months ago. Only this time, it won’t be cute if someone asks me when I’m due. I’m also not nearly as excited about my post-baby bump as I was about my pre-baby bump. I am carrying a few extra pounds.

I also realize that I am one of the last people that should complain about my weight, the way I look, etc. There are probably tons of people out there would like to look like I do, especially when you consider the amount of work I put into maintaining my girlish figure. The amount of work, I believe would be zero. Maybe it’s negative. I don’t know. When I looked up the definition for negative work my eyes glassed over and my brain shut off. Literally. I just had to jump start it with a peanut butter cup. It was a miniature, so the calories don’t count. Back to the topic. Why am I self conscious about my weight? I don’t know. Let’s think about the whole debacle with Britney Spears at the whatever awards. People said she looked fat. When I watched the replays (over and over and over and over and over and over again), I kept thinking to myself: 1) that girl can dance better than I can all hopped up on drugs and 2) she is NOT fat! (leave her alone! Ha ha ha).

There is something wrong with me. No, there is something wrong with our society. It used to be that a girl with just a bit of meat was considered healthy, and desirable. Because, after all, who wants to date a sack of skin and bones? A girl who is healthy is more likely to be fertile, etc. (same argument as why breasts are “sexy.”) So, what I want to know is when did we lose that ideal? It hasn’t been that long. Marilyn Monroe was certainly no size 0! The models we see these days are bags of bones with some hair, glittery clothes and $3000 shoes. When did that become sexy?

So, I’m deflated and feeling a bit self conscious. If you meet me on the street and happen to ask me when I’m due, please expect a swift kick to the behind and a punch to the nose,. I might even let my baby pull your hair, rip off your glasses and pinch you until you bruise. He’s good at those things. Does all of this mean I’m going to go on a real diet? No. Am I going to start working out? (You mean carrying around an extra 25 squirming pounds most of the day isn’t exercise?) Probably not. I’d better just get used to my inflated belly and my deflated chest.

Mission Accomplished.

The baby is 100% weaned. While I was relieved at first to be done with that part of motherhood, I am starting to be a bit sad about it. Last night I cleaned the RV while my mom babysat. There were no interruptions with "Mary, I'm sorry.. I tried everything else.. Could he want to nurse?" Someone else could handle everything. It is very nice to know that I could enjoy an evening out without worries that he's here at home screaming and fussing because he can't have his favorite bedtime snack. The thing I miss the most about nursing? Several times per day I was guaranteed that the baby would let me hold him, kiss him and just stare at him. He would latch on, his eyes would roll back in his head as if to say "Oh man, that is the best milk EVER!" Then he would tug on his hair (or mine) until he fell asleep. Every once in a while he would get a big smile on his face. He loved the boob. For a few days bedtime was terrible. Squirming, whining, then tears. He didn't want to be rocked unless it came along with a snack. Now, we're set. We say our prayers, Squeeze the "Daddy Bear" to find out who loves us, turn on the lullaby CD, and I rock him for two lullabies. Then, he goes to sleep on his own in his bed. He sleeps through the night. Around 7:30 he wakes up and cries a bit to let me know he's awake.

New things:

• He says "getchoo getchoo getchoo" and hides behind furniture when he wants one of us to get him and tickle him.
• He grabs his blanket and his bear when he gets up in the morning and brings them with him.
• If he's tired, he'll bring you his bear/blanket as if to say "take me to bed."
• He "clears" his tray when he's done eating using a sign I taught him.
• He knows generally where his milk is and how to ask for it. (screams at the door to the kitchen).
• Steals things off of store shelves. (not really steal, but removes and deposits on the floor.)

Things he no longer does:

• Cries for hours at bedtime
• Blows raspberry's after he sneezes
• He no longer walks. He runs.
• Allows me to leave his shoes on. He pulls the velcro off in the car.
• He no longer is tricked by having something hidden from him

I guess, he is generally growing up. Even though we're still a few weeks off from his first birthday, it's a bit depressing. His birthday party is this weekend (we're out of the country closer to his birthday), and I don't know that I'm really looking forward to it. I'm not ready for this mileston. I'm not ready to be able to feed my baby whole milk, peanut products, and allow him to just walk around. But then, life isn't about being ready for those things, because when you're a mom, you never are. Life is about living through those things, cherishing them and moving on. ::sigh::