Cranky Mommy

So here is the story of my weight gain explained… it’s a little long but please bear with me.
I have spent most of my life with both a gift and a curse. The gift is, that, for the majority of my life, I have never needed to diet. I’ve had a fabulous metabolism and ate whatever I wanted that didn’t bother my stomach, without worrying about weight gain. I was one of those girls who made the other girls jealous in high school, who were starving themselves to wear their fancy jeans (never had the big Barbie boobs so many girls wanted, but I’m glad I never got them).
The curse is, though, that ever since I popped out of the womb, I have had terrible insomnia. I have always been a night person, even as a baby, and when I was a child it took me several hours to get to sleep. This has not changed at all, minus several times in my twenties and early thirties when I was on various antidepressants which caused me to actually be sleepy at night, and sleep much much longer. These antidepressants and other medications, for the most part, caused a little weight gain (although one made me lose weight). That, and increasing age, did add a few pounds, although it wasn’t that much.
In 2001, I came off medication entirely because we wanted to try for our first child. I’d already started losing a little weight, due to no meds, when I found out I was pregnant. Then, of course, I had the world’s longest party with food for 9 months, waking up in the middle of the night to eat, to continue the food siesta, before and going back to bed. I gained over 50 pounds during my pregnancythat way.
Somehow, through no conscious effort of my own (but largely due to a year and a half of breastfeeding my son) I lost all the weight, plus about 10 extra. I’m sure chasing after a toddler helped a whole lot, too.
And there I was 2 days ago… wondering How the heck did I gain back 16 pounds over the last 2+ years since I quit nursing, especially in the last few months? And, I was hungry all the time. What could be the cause? Where did my old metabolism go? Could it be merely getting older?
Then I realized what happened. It was, in large part, the Benedryl.
While I was nursing, I was stuck being an insomniac and didn’t want to take any medications that would enter my breastmilk. When he was finished nursing, my little 2 AM bedtimes were making me, well… extra cranky. So I learned a little trick of taking an over-the-counter antihystamine to help me get to sleep. I loved it (And my nose was extra clear).
Earlier this year, they took my favorite antihystamine out of many stores, probably due to non-drowsy drugs like Claritin taking it’s place (which don’t work very well for allergies). This was a bummer for me. My little nite-nite pill was gone. So, I switched to the “heavy” stuff…. Benedryl.
Actually Diphenhydramine (sold under the name Benedryl) has been sold as a non-habit forming sleep-aid for years. And it does work. But it doesn’t say appetite stimulant, or hormone stimulant on the box.
So that brings me to a night a couple of days ago when I was wondering why I’d been hungry at the end of a meal and tiptoeing into the kitchen for a midnight snack most nights of the week, and never feeling full, when I did a little query on the internet and came up with this, and other similiar articles. To quote:

Nonprescription may also cause weight gain. The antihistamine, diphenhydramine, for instance, is on Dr. Blackburn’s list. It is an ingredient in dozens of popular cold and allergy remedies; sleep aids; and drugs to prevent motion sickness. An increasing number of prescription drugs, including some linked to weight gain, also become available for sale without a prescription.

So the end result of it, is I have not taken diphenhydramine in two days and already I have noticed the gigantic change in my appetite, as in — I no longer want to consume house and home. So for now, I’ve chosen to be sleepless and not continue to “grow”. Perhaps with some of those late nights, I’ll get a good blog post out of it.

Or, perhaps I should say “Hey Y’all”, instead. We are having a lovely vacation as usual, but ironically the peach state seems to be free of decent tasting peaches and they are all pulpy. Strawberries aren’t bad, though.

The good:
My son didn’t poop in his underwear on the plane there.
We had a nice trip to the national aquarium.
Central Air!
Cable, Cable, and more dumb cable shows. The dumber the better. Heck, we watched a show Anna Nicole Smith, Cleavage, and old Brady Brunch reruns.
My husband and I have gone on 2 dates, thanks to Nana and Pop-Pop.
I haven’t had to cook all week.
I have 2 new bras and a pair of shorts, all on sale.
My son did poop in the potty (at a JCC pool, not in it) for the first time in several months.
I’m reading. An actual book, for a change. A good book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I’m learning how much petrol it takes to make a cow and how much corn is in every American (a lot).
I am so relaxed I am turning into a jellyfish.

The bad:
My son pooped in his swim diaper at the pool before he got to the toilet (thankfully not in the pool. That totally freaks out the pool people.)
It’s as stinking hot here as it was at home.
The national aquarium was so crowded you could hardly see the fish.
My parents, who have most of the luxuries in life, still have dial-up.
I am so relaxed I am turning into a jellyfish.

The odd:
Strangest thing I’ve noticed here is the people in the Atlanta area don’t put bumper stickers on their cars. In Baltimore, you know exactly what political affiliation someone has, what school their kids go to, and what their hobbies they have just by driving behind them.

The nasty:
Never, I repeat NEVER, order “sweet tea” when someone in the south asks you if you want “Sweet or Unsweet”. Georgia sweet tea is about 1 pound of sugar with just a hint of tea in a glass, and it is absolutely undrinkable. It’s funny how I could forget that.

The ugly:
I definitely cannot pretend that my dryer is shrinking my clothes and that the scale at our customer’s house is wrong. I got on a scale at the JCC Pool and OMG, have I put on weight! But there’s more to that story on my theory of why… (in which I have a new and interesting theory) and that’s another blog post. Stay tuned.

I’ve obviously traumatized my son over this issue of potty training.
Whatever… I know, who knows what the hell I did exactly, but he’s nearly four and a little encouragement I thought would help. Well apparently I over-encouraged. I bribed and I clapped and did everything the books said and… here we are…
And now my son is just, well, holding it in all the time. He pees alright all the time, but he just won’t poop in the potty. Now we are at the point where every couple of days he poops, in a pull-up or his underwear. He hasn’t pooped in the potty in a couple months, and then he did it a few times and that was it.
He didn’t go yesterday, and he didn’t go today. And tomorrow morning early, we catch our plane on vacation. I really, really, hope he goes before we board.
Please!

The summer had been going pretty well so far for us. The whole family’s health has been miraculous. Nobody has been sick! The first year of preschool was truly hell for that. And for the most part, being home all day again with the boy hasn’t been too bad.
That was, until about a week ago. Dr. Jeckyl was out of the office and Mr. Hyde was peeing on the floor, throwing things, and generally being a pain in the ass. And all I kept thinking was, camp camp camp camp camp.
And one good night’s sleep later, my well behaved little “angel” was back, like night and day. The irony of it was, someone must have been hearing my thoughts, because as it turned out my husband needed help on a faux job. So, this week my little “angel” is off to camp at his preschool and I am helping my husband at work with a striae finish.
Now I adore my husband, but there are 2 things that are real marriage-testers that you can do with your spouse. One - is hanging wallpaper… we’ve had some of our best arguements hanging wallpaper. The other is doing a striae finish.
I’m happy to say we didn’t kill each other today and we both took turns flipping out at different times, but not at the same time, and not at each other (much). I hate doing straie (and between you and me a lot of faux finish is dumb, but don’t tell our the customers) but I am just glad I am NOT scraping a dormer window on the 40 foot ladder in 100 degree weather. Although at times today, I wish I was.
My goal is to get through this week in one piece and finish this job, without choking any members of my family, so we can get to our vacation at the end of the week. Wish my luck.

This really is pretty anticlimatic at this point, but I will announce it anyway - we have come to the decision to stay in our house. After a good bit of deliberation about the fact that we really like our neighbors and the (mostly) quietness of our street, and that we can nearly walk to everything, and that due to some of my volunteer work, my son has a guaranteed spot at a nearby charter school.
This of course means we will have to go through the process of finding a contractor for an addition and half bath, to work with that we like at a price that we like. (That could take another 20 years, knowing indecisive me).
So, we will put up with this tight space for another year or so and add on. However I really can’t feel sorry for myself…
…because I just read this woman’s story. She and her husband have 10 children, including four brand new quadruplets, and a set of three-year-old of triplets… when the babies come home they will have a total 11 people living in a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles (The oldest daughter got out of there… lucky her)!
I’d hate to be pent up on a rainy day with 9 kids. Good thing it doesn’t rain a lot in Los Angeles.

I found a new way to feel superior, and waste time at the same time. I go to the Yahoo Answers “Pregnancy and Parenting”.
Sometimes I just read and cringe. Or giggle. Questions like,

if u have ur period on time every month u r not pregnant ??!!?

or

any buetiful names for gals am expecting , help?

or

my son is drinking soy milk !do you think that’s the reason that’s why his fart smell very bad?

or

my six months baby fell from a sofa?

My god, these people are procreating!!!! Not all of them are that bad, but a lot of them are.
Sometimes I answer questions. Not that I am a big parenting genius, but really it doesn’t take much to have something to offer. And although I misspell words sometimes, reading this stuff, I feel like Shakespeare.
If this is the future, we just might be doomed.

Last night I spent over an hour using Mr. Clean magic eraser to clean my kitchen floor.
And it was fun.
Yep, I’m a freak.

Yesterday evening, after attending a meeting for an organization I volunteer for, I headed for the Cafe Hon to have rare glass of wine with the other committee volunteers. I wasn’t exactly dressed up, but it’s not exactly a fancy place so I figured it didn’t matter. I parked just south of “The Avenue”, the main drag known as 36th street, and got out of my car next to a bunch of Hampden teenagers wearing mostly skater attire.
One of the girls pointed at my feet and said something about my shoes and giggled. I said what? I wondered if I had stepped in something and they were just being nice enough to let me know. She repeated herself something about “nice shoes” and then the whole group of them burst out laughing.
So apparently my fake birkenstock sandals are worth making fun of.
Really I don’t think they are that bad, but what do I know.
I proceeded into the Cafe Hon and met up with the other volunteers. We talked about some volunteer stuff but also about our personal lives. One woman my age mentioned her young teenage daughter wants to dye her hair black, and just went out and bought a wardrobe of entirely black and army green. I and another fellow commented that punk/goth/emo looks beats the “hootchie girl” look any day so that perhaps it isn’t so bad (heck, black and army green are my favorite colors to wear).
I mentioned what happened to me, with the teens making fun of my sandals, and they didn’t think my sandals looked that bad either (of course, they are all my age).
We discussed what we used to look like as teenagers. The mom of the teen told me she used to have brightly dyed hair and her husband used to have a blue mohawk. I told her that I used to have black and burgundy hair which was shaved on the side, and my husband back in the early punk days had large random chunks cut in his hair.
She and I both used to wear funny imported shoes. Shoes like Monkey Boots and Creepers and Doc Martens and Na Nas, black British imported goth-y shoes that were very very pointy, what my parents called wicked witch of the west shoes. My dad hated them. Hers had rows of scull and crossbone buckles on them.
I’m so out of it I really don’t know what is popular with teenagers today. I like some newer stuff but really I’m not on top of it as all and I’m kinda stuck somewhere in the early 1990s. I’m not particularly stylish but I’m 35 and I suspect that is the way it should be. Who really wants a mom that dresses like a teenager, anyway?
I know birkenstock-style shoes are out, But they are really comfortable. And that is the same kind of comment my parents would make about some of the stuff that I find to be horribly unstylish.
Okay, get me to the old-age home already.

Bless me Father for I have sinned.
It has been a long, long time since my last confession (actually I’ve never confessed since I’m not Catholic).
It is nearly midnight and I just spread leftover chocolate frosting on two oatmeal cookies and ate them. And now the keyboard is sticky.
How many Hail Marys and Our Fathers do I need to do?

The Fourth of July means a lot of different things for different people. For some, is a reason to have a barbeque and party and get incredibly drunk. For others, it is an excuse to wave the flag while beating one’s chest in a adrenaline rush of nationalism, denouncing those who are not like-minded. Most of us Americans I think, are neither, or a teeny bit of both.
I’m not a particularly patriotic person. I have my reasons for it, which I posted on my old blog and I don’t feel like going over again. However, I do have a little patriotic idea for today.
I decided a while ago I don’t like blogging about politics because it is a waste of time, there are a zillion bettter political bloggers than I am with eager, like-minded audiences. And, a lot of the political blogs and websites tend to stifle debate and polarize rather than create a political conversation.
In fact, political conversations don’t seem to happen hardly at all anymore. Instead we have political scolding matches. After watching this news show on ABC, I am more convinced of it. Americans won’t really associate with those politically opposite of them. They won’t read the same news. They put down their political counterparts like they are satanic… when really, a lot of those so-called satanic people we might actually like, if they didn’t open their mouths about politics.
So, all you in the world out there, here’s my idea for the Fourth:
Stop being so self-righteous about political issues. Try to figure out what you have in common with your fellow Americans, all of them, even those across the aisle from you. Try to have pleasant exchange with them. Remember when you have one finger pointing out you have four pointing back at you. Don’t flame the blogs of those who differ from you politically. Consider that that they may not be any more stupid, ignorant or hypocritical than you are. Play nice. Because like it or not, we are all stuck in the same country together.