Snack less

On March 23, 2014March 24, 2014 By JillIn Health eating, I need a glass of wine, Mommy Confessions, Mommy Musings, Sugar and Snack Less, Uncategorized4 Comments

Gather the horses, sharpen the swords, get all your man power together to guard the castle door. Hold it strong and steady— I am starting to wage a war against the SUGAR MONSTERS and other offenders like the SALT SNATCHERS.

This mom is sugared out, chocolate out, and frosted out…the circuits in her brain are firing as fast as firecrackers… “marshmallows, oreos, sprinkles, cookies, treats…”

Its been bad, Ari has been talking in her sleep saying “I want chocolate,” and waking up saying M&M’s. Gia wants a donut practically every time we leave the house, my closet is jam packed with junk, and my car is so crunchy with crackers, the bugs have been salivating at the idea of getting in!

Ok, that was gross. But seriously, I don’t know how it’s gotten to this. I used to be the healthiest person. I was a Health Science major in college, I taught spinning classes, and I used to annoy the hell out of friends and family by talking about food and nutrition.

I think it started when I began going to play dates and I saw all of this junk food in people’s houses. I remember this one mom who fed her daughter a chocolate frosted donut for breakfast. Other moms had closets full of cookies and sugar cereals…their kids seemed fine, and I slowly slipped away from my strict dietary rules (I just had one child at the time as well). Month by month, I slacked more and more and found it easier to just say “yes” rather than deal with the howling.

Get out the violins…oh sorry story, poor Jill, swept under the sea of sugar and never battled the waves of whipped cream! So here we are, my kids are 4 and 2 and I need to fix this. Snacky nanny 911 to the rescue!

One other embarrassing secret I need to admit. I am struggling with the snacks as well…oh wait, that’s no secret! I write about this all of the time…I think I have eaten the past…um, really embarrassed about this, like twenty…thousand bags of goldfish and of course Cheez its. I always buy them for the kids and end up on the couch with my wine, munching away! I am such a cliché! Doesn’t every health and fitness magazine say, don’t eat on the couch, in the dark, mindlessly watching TV or when you’re tired and stressed.

Ok, so it’s me and the girls starting fresh, and trying to get better at eating better, like less snacks, more meals…I will be brainstorming ideas to get us on the path less traveled by Mr. Goldfish, Mrs. Donut, and Ms. Cookie. Stay tuned for my weekly report of snack less, smile more…and please no judgment people, I am a work in progress. Not striving for perfection here, like last week when I endured the MOST HELLISH trip to the pediatrician’s office with my little one who screamed and thrashed like a scene from my bloody Valentine…we got a donut after and I had a BIG GLASS(s) of wine.

The phrase Super Mom needs to die

On March 20, 2014March 24, 2014 By JillIn Mommy Musings1 Comment

I was sitting in a doctor’s office yesterday, waiting to be called in (the doctor was running 30 minutes late. NOT A PROBLEM when you are kid free and dear old Mom is watching your child!)

Thumbing through a magazine, I notice this article about Jessica Alba and how “even she isn’t a supermom,” and how having children changed her. She even goes as far as to admitting eating her kid’s leftovers. Gasp…

UM!!! FOR REAL..BIG DEAL!…I cannot stop thinking about how this fact was even mentioned, let alone made a highlight of the article but that’s beside the point.

There are thousands of articles written about the supermom, and we hear this term a lot in parenting circles…visions of lip sticked, hair freshly highlighted, gym bodied women, shopping in Whole Foods while their cell phones beep reminders about play dates, volunteering commitments, and appointments. All the while planning to go home and bake a five tiered cake and put together dazzling, homemade invitations for yet another party she’s hosting next month. Ok, so this woman is “super.” Good for her. Note I say, this woman is super. Minus the mom part.

I googled “Super Mom.”

There were thousands of articles relating to this topic.

There was an article entitled Best and Worst Celebrity Moms.

This was the description from the site.

Celebrity moms are the media’s newest big thing – some are idolized and emulated, others criticized and ridiculed – but as a culture, we’re clearly obsessed. We track every stage of their baby bumps, scoff at their post-baby bodies, drool over their kids’ outfits and desperately search for any traces of normalcy that show us, Hey, they’re just like me! Love them or loathe them, here are 50 we couldn’t ignore.

This kind of thing really irks me. These women are moms; they are doing the hardest job in the world. Some dress great, some don’t. Who cares? I like seeing what celebrities are wearing as well but again, but I don’t like the mixing of the mom in there.

I saw a link to YouTube, featuring a reality show with ten celebrity mothers, who along with their kids compete with other celebrity mothers on various compatibility levels and win the title of ‘Super Mom.’

I hate the concept of the “super mom,” or “the got it together mom.” This term is way over used and the line is getting blurry. Fantastic woman verses a fantastic super mom.

Some of us are more organized, more put together, more driven than others. We knew girls like that in high school, women like that in college, and the ladies we socialize with today.

This is the way it is. We are all wired differently. This is a fact from the beginning of time. What I can’t fathom is the mix of the super and the mom part. How are you not automatically super if you’re a Mom?

You carried a child around in your belly for nine months, gave birth (enough said) or went through the exhausting process of adoption or a different method to have a child. You gave a piece of yourself, and you became more self less. You began to live a completely different existence, taking care of someone else or elses…always thinking about your child or children. Sacrificing so much…your free time, your alone time, your sleep, your money, your sanity (but that might just be me), and basically your…everything.

Johnson&Johnson coined the term, “Having a baby changes everything.”

All moms are super. Enough said.

Cool as a Cucumber on a Manic Monday

I. will. remain. calm.

Even though she is jumping around like a Mexican jumping bean.

Even though she screamed and carried on during Gia’s dance class, where she wanted “in, in, in.”

Even though she tried to bash Gia’s head with the broom quite a few times.

I will be calm, cool, and collected.

Yup, going to try this, not going to raise my voice today, will get a boot camp booty (Lord knows I need it) workout running up and down the stairs to put G in timeout when she is sassy, rather than yell. I’ve been raising my voice quite a few octaves in the past couple of weeks, and waking up with a sore throat and a sorry heart. Plus, it’s not working…I know this. I was a teacher. But, still, sometimes, I just can’t help it.

Ok, it’s noon and kids are eating each other like a scene from National Geographic- let’s get creative before one child gets eaten! Keep calm and carry on (why is it I feel they created this saying for me and it’s also EVERYWHERE NOW!)

First we devise a scene that is slightly disconcerting if you think about it, kind of like the way I feel about that nursery rhyme about the blackbirds. Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie

It gives me goosebumps thinking about these birds in the pie!

I can’t explain how excited they were to do this…running to get bowls and their furry friends to cook them up. Strange, I know, but it occupied them.

Then I rummaged through the closet of crappola and found the second box of Christmas cards from last year that were sent by mistake from Shutterfly.

What can we do with these? Spend an hour cutting out the pictures and make a scary, OCD looking sort of collage, like the apartment wall at Carrie Mathison’s from Homeland.