This Sugar Thing

My goal is not to eliminate all sugar from my diet; only the most sugar-laden substances.  (Eliminating all sugar from the typical Western diet is virtually impossible.)  All the foods I listed yesterday have to be off the list for the time being.

I'll still have toast with jam from time to time, or an apple or a banana or blueberries.  I'll still eat some pre-cooked meals (Amy's cheese tamale verde is a favorite) that have up to 10 grams of sugar.  Any meal that comes with more than 10 grams of sugar, though, is off-limits.  

Just twelve hours into this, however, I've already messed up twice.  I ate half an apricot-rasberry cookie early this morning--completely forgetting about my diet; but I remembered a second later and threw the rest of it away.  Later, however, I ate one and a half Pepperidge Farm Bourdeaux cookies...on purpose.  Okay, that's just 5 grams of sugar, total...but still.  How could I be so weak after just twelve hours?  

I'm that addicted, I guess.  

Goodbye Sugar

My last hurrah with sugar for at least six months, if not longer:  A chocolate Powerbar, Gatorade, chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, chocolate with hazelnuts, Pepperidge Farm apricot-rasberry cookies.  All consumed today (the last item, the chocolate, just a few seconds ago).

Yes, way too much...but I had to go out in style.

No more sugary foods for the next six months at least.

The Mommy Function

Was sick last night and today--just a cold; but I had a miserable night; for some reason, was freezing cold at the start of the evening, and piled on the blankets, then woke up sweating; ended up getting very little sleep and had a splitting headache.

Went through the motions of cleaning and cooking and grocery shopping today, but none of it with much energy.  Did my daily exercises, did the laundry...flopped on the couch for an hour in the middle of the day watching talk show television excerpts (mostly Ricky Gervais on Jimmy Fallon) while my husband and son visited the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier in Alameda.  All in all, it was a decent day, and I'm not really all that sick, a mild cough, not even much congestion...but feel terrible, somehow, mentally/emotionally.  Very low energy and grumpy as hell.  

On days like these the "Mommy Function"--the caring, nurturing, worker-bee parts of my personality--is on a very low setting.  I still offer my son his breakfast and snacks, get his dinner on the table, listen (half-heartedly) to his pronouncements about a new warplane video game he wants to create, or look at what he's trying to do on Club Penguin...but deep down I just want to forget about everyone, soak in a bubble bath, then immerse myself in a stupid book or movie.  

And right now, I just want to sleep and forget about this sad sack of a day.

School as Poison

My son's school is not bad at all...but it suffers from the same problem of all "good schools" across America:  the element of surprise is almost absent.

Predictability can be a fine thing for young children--as long as it's not over-prescribed.  When it is, like all good medicines, it changes into a kind of poison.  That's true for adults as well, but it's especially true for kids, who desire new experiences and adventure as fervently as they desire pasta and cookies.

I am reminded of this every time my son laughs in a surprised way--which almost never happens at school.  It happened this evening when he was watching a "Magic School Bus" episode about digestion.  Ms. Frizzle's class went for a "field trip" inside a boy's digestive system.  It was hilarious to see the tiny school bus rocking back and forth on the boy's tongue, along with bits of cheese doodles and olive, or to see teeth as big as boulders crashing down as the boy masticated.  My son was entranced, and tickled to his core.

He is getting so much of value from his school; he's learning a lot about teamwork, how to be a friend, and how to work independently and take care of his own things (well, most of the time). And his teacher is one of the most caring and considerate souls I've ever met.

But what he might be losing underneath the flood of worksheets, and the grinding routine of his high-powered public school's curriculum--adventures, surprise, fun--those missing elements are hugely important in a child's life...there's no getting around it.  I'm not saying that this school is poisonous or that it's merely stamping out worker-drones...but sometimes I know, from the look on my son's face when I volunteer in class, that he's extremely bored...and that surprise and excitement are almost never part of his school day.

The Caine Mutiny

The three of us watched "The Caine Mutiny" yesterday and today (in two installments to accommodate my son's bedtime, and his attention span).  Of course, my son enjoyed the details of Navy life, and the short battle, and the typhoon; he left to play a video game once the courtroom scenes got underway.

My only memory of the movie, which I watched as a young adult, was Humphrey Bogart cracking up in the courtroom, pulling out those little metal balls, putting his paranoia on full display...the most famous scene.  I was surprised at how well-done the entire movie is from start to finish, how well-written and well-acted.  Van Johnson is perhaps the biggest surprise; his character serves as the fulcrum of the entire drama, and he handles the role beautifully.  

It deepened my appreciation of the armed forces to watch this again.  They deal with a lot more besides the stress of battle.  There's the stress of boredom, of strange environments, of superiors who are slightly (or more than slightly) cracked, in one way or another.  Add to that a war, or bad weather, and it's one hell of a mess.

This has nothing to do with my son, my writing or my little exercising/dieting triumphs, but...I feel pretty bad, suddenly, that I've never donated to an armed services support group.  Even if I don't agree with a fair number of the missions they undertake.  They are putting their lives on the line, and often, living in horrible circumstances while doing so.

On this Thanksgiving Day--time to rectify this and find a good group that needs my support.

The Ultimate Feast

Today, the day before Thanksgiving, my son was on vacation, and extremely happy about that.  We actually managed to read three books together; he also played with a math app on the iPad, and did some Tynker programming on the computer.  The rest of the time he did little or nothing--with a big grin on his face.

He loves his down time, and I don't blame him.  He often comes to tell me stories he's just made up about his favorite characters from books, iPad apps or video games...I know there's a whole universe being dreamed up in his head when he's just sitting there, staring into space.  So I try to give him plenty of time to do that.  (I know that I've also been saying he's spends too much time on the iPad and computer...well, that's true as well; but I've just signed him up for two after-school classes and there will be a third one soon, which should help with that particular problem.)

I managed to clean up two more stories.  I realize that I've been whining an awful lot lately about how the stories aren't done, I'm so behind, etc. etc....who cares?  I'm getting it done, and it just takes time--a little more time than I thought it would, but that's okay.  I've got sixty more stories to plow through.  If it takes fifty more days, that's not the end of the world.  (Though I hope I can get it done in two weeks.)

Also ran--not at a blistering pace by any means; but the remarkable thing is, suddenly I'm running four or five miles and feeling good the whole time.  A huge change from the beginning of the summer.  I don't have the well-toned quads of the truly dedicated distance runner...but who cares about that, either.

Also today, indulged in my ultimate guilty pleasures--nachos, a margarita, and chocolate.  I've been dreaming about a meal like that since before the triathlon; glad that it finally happened...now that that's done, I'll try to get a little serious about improving my diet.

Disappointment

I haven't been lazy these past few weeks since the triathlon; I've exercised every day, even vigorously at times.  But my body is saying, "It's cold; let's add some fat layers."  Or at least that's what it feels like.  Hopped on the scale today and saw that my weight has gone up by at least a couple pounds in the last four or five days.  I know that I was abnormally skinny during the period right before and right after the triathlon.  But for heaven's sakes--I don't want to shoot past my pre-pregnancy weight, after all the effort it took to shed those four or five pounds.

I haven't been lazy about the editing either; yet I'm still only on story number forty-seven.  Still have sixty-two left to look at.  Am getting tired of the whole process.  There's no way I'm going to finish by the end of this month.