Sorry kid, there are just some things that can't be helped.

I was in Value Village a couple of months ago going through the kids books when suddenly I spied a thin blue hard-covered book. "Miss Mopp's Lucky Day" it said on the cover. Could it be? My heart began to beat faster. I opened it up and there were little yellow cupcakes with pink icing and a strawberry on top all over the inside cover and facing page. I flipped eagerly past the printing info and dedication pages and there on page one was a picture of Miss Mopp in her kitchen with cakes cooling on the counters. Once upon a time I had owned this story. I'm not sure when it disappeared out of my life but it was one of my favourites as a child. An incredible find! I loved looking at that page of cakes cooling on the counters waiting to be packaged up and taken to town to be sold in Miss Mopp's cake shop. I thought they were the most beautiful cakes I had ever seen and I spent an inordinate amount of time carefully inspecting each one imaging they would taste as wonderful as they looked. Side note: adult eyes are not nearly as full of wonder as a child's.

Losing this Christmas huskiness would be alot easier if I didn't love food so much, if I wasn't, in fact, all about the food. I wish I was one of those people who thought about food in terms of fueling their bodies and in terms of health and strength. Instead, my thoughts about food tend more to the entertainment, comfort, reward side of the scale. Baby and bridal shower invites spur thoughts of "well at least there will be food." I specifically designate things as my "nap-time indulgences" even going so far as to time cookies and such to beep about five minutes after all the kids have gone down for naps. I am the kind of person who goes to bed looking forward to getting up the next day so I can have breakfast. Then even as I am eating breakfast I am dreaming up lovely combinations for lunch. Reading cookbooks is enjoyable, even anticipated, as I do my menu plans. As soon as the blessed hour of bedtime arrives and I kiss the kids goodnight I head straight to the pantry to reward myself for yet another hard days work molding the future of our country. In the back of my mind is a constant cataloguing and inventory of the holy trinity, fridge/freezer/pantry, and contemplation of all the separate and combined delights they have to yield. All this wouldn't necessarily be so bad if I could at least make up for it at the other end. You know if I liked to exercise - or just plain did some. Hello, Burpee Fiasco anyone? I just really, really hate exercising and I really, really love food.

And so what is to be the fate of my muffin top? Daily I decide I'm getting back on the wagon and I determine to make a true attempt to exercise the muffin top away. But at the end of the day all I've done is ice it with buttercream frosting. This is depressing but in the spirit of full disclosure I'm not even sure if I want to change. As previously mentioned I really, really like food and I'm just not ready to take such drastic measures as *gasp* limiting my daily sugar intake. I think it's safe to say I haven't reached rock bottom yet. Or swimsuit season.

I do not want my kids to have my food issues and I have tried to be very careful to help them cultivate a healthy relationship with food. I never use food as bribes for behaviour or rewards and I never talk about my weight or body issues around them. Last Sunday at church Ava was out of sorts. She spent the first part of church crying because she wanted it to be time for kids church and then when it was time for kids church we stood outside the door while she cried that she didn't want to go in. "Ava look at all your little friends in there waiting for you. Don't you want to go play with them?"
"No-ohhhhhhhhh. I want to stay with you-uuuuuu."
"But honey you've been looking forward to playing with your friends all morning. Why don't you go in? I know you'll have fun."
"Wellllllll....What snack is it today?"

Torture thy name is Burpee

The Burpee as described by Dictionary.com:

1. Start in a push up position.
2. Do one push up.
3. Quickly jump feet forward to a squatting position.
4. Jump high into the air, bringing up your knees to your chest and raising your hands above your head.
5. Land with feet together on the balls of your feet.
6. Drop back to a squat.
7. Jump feet back to a push up position.
8. Repeat many times.

The Burpee according to Heather:

1.
2.
3.
4. Repeat many times.


And since I've fallen off the wagon anyway, I might as well make it worth my while before I get any more brilliant excercise ideas.

The one where I feel guilty (and husky) about all the calories consumed during Christmas.

So it's a new year. I don't think I have come down off my month-long sugar binge yet. Seriously, I start to get the shakes if I go too many minutes between bites of shortbread or buttertarts, or chocolate, or gingerbread or soft, chewy, melt-in-your-mouth, homemade toffee....oh the toffee...

Focus.
New Year.

Right. It's a new year so it's time to renew my commitment to eat less and move more. Less cookies, less chocolate, less full-fat Starbucks, less late-night snacks, less nap-time indulgences, less bed-time rewards. More discipline, more fitness, more running up and down my second story stairs. Sigh. I'm going through withdrawls just thinking about it. But I have to do something. If not for the sake of my heart and being heart-healthy at least for the sake of my muffin top. Skinny jeans and muffin top? Oh no you di-in't.

I have considered various ways to get the "move more" part incorporated into my life. But being slothful and lazy is surprisingly not conducive with moving more. Talking to Hugh about this dilemma he suggested a gym pass. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. That is 100% not going to happen. I'm not even going to pretend I'm motivated enough to get up and be at a gym at 6am. What I'm really looking for is something that will make me healthy (and thin) with little or no apparent effort. Any suggestions?

I have a good friend who is the queen of the cleanse. I mean she could probably write a book about the pros, cons and results of 4o or 50 different cleanses and I am feeling so sugar-puffy right now that I actually considered doing one. For about a minute. But let's get real here. I did not obtain this muffin-top by denying myself.

Then of course there is the whole cross-fitness movement where the theory is you don't need a gym to get in shape you just use what is in your environment. Example. You take your kids to the park and you run while they bike or you do lunges while you walk there then you do tricep dips off the bench and pull-ups on the monkey bars and burpees on the grass, etc. Which is great in theory. Except A) Do you realize how stupid you feel struggling to use muscles that have not existed since Grade 10 gym class and do a pull-up on shoulder-height monkey bars while the other moms are chatting and sipping lattes? And B) How do you have time to do more than one dip at a time between the nose-wiping, the swing-pushing, the slide-catching, the owie-kissing, the fight-refereeing and the peeing on of the trees? And C) Have you done a burpee recently? I don't think I've done one since Grade 1o gym class (thank you Mrs. Howard for those wonderful memories). Until today that is. Because I have a new get fit strategy.

Heidi told me about this guy in our town who runs a Cross-fit program of some kind and who has issued something he calls The Burpee Challenge. Day 1 - do one burpee. Day 2 - do two burpees. Day 3 - three burpees and so on and so forth, you start slow, you ease into all that fitness and healthiness. This works for me. I can still indulge in my slothful ways but I can justify it because I'm slowly building up the number of burpees I'm doing in a day and therefore building up to being fit. Although somehow I can't really imagine the three month mark. I wonder if there's a "start over" after a certain number of days?

Anyway, today was Day 1. I popped a piece of toffee in my mouth - What? The bag was open on the counter and I had to close it - dropped and did a burpee. It was pretty awesome. I didn't even pee my pants like I thought I would. (It's a lot of things to keep tense so you don't fall on your face, you know?) Then I got myself a glass of water because it's important to stay hydrated, and now I'm sitting on the couch feeling pretty darn good about myself. Fitness and thinness are within my grasp. Yep. This could be it. This could be the answer I've been looking for.

I'll let you know in three months.

Please sir, I want some more

A couple of months ago Hugh said, "have you ever noticed that Tristan sounds like he has an English accent when he talks?"
"Uh, no." I said very disparagingly.
"Seriously listen to him he totally has an accent."
"He does not."
"He does."
"Doesn't."
"Does."
"Doesn't"
"Does."
"DOESN'T."
"DOES."

Fine.
"Doesn't".

Anyway, I didn't think of it again until we were in Vernon for a wedding in November and about 3 different people said, "Oh how cute, Tristan sounds like he has an accent." He doesn't exchange his 'r's for 'w's which is sort of classic accent sound in a kid or switch his 'th's for 'f's and try as I might I couldn't hear it so I just nodded and smiled, yeah, cute.

Then 3 weeks ago we had our parent/teacher conferences at preschool and at the end the teacher said, "By the way we were just wondering...We've never met Tristan and Ava's dad and we were just wondering if Tristan has an accent because his dad is British or something." Seriously people! There is NO ACCENT!

Last Friday for my birthday a good friend watched my kids so Hugh and I could do dinner and a movie. During the debrief when we went to pick up our sleeping babes Heidi, who knows better, asked, "Is there any chance Tristan is from a British prep school?"
Here in redneck central? Not to my knowledge.

I guess as all the kids were getting ready for bed there was a little disagreement over who was going to get to sleep in the magic bed aka the hide-a-bed. Finally Tristan pointed imperiously to the spare room and told Heidi's boys, "you, you, you," (also he has a slight stutter) "you, you, you, can go sleep in your father's room."

Fine. I admit it. I play tapes of Dicken's while the kids are sleeping. But only for Tristan.

Happy Birthday to me

Having a December birthday is interesting. On one hand I love it - the lights, the sparkle, the celebratory nature of the season. On the other hand I don't love it - it's parties that are not for your birthday and presents that are for under the tree.

Last year was my favourite birthday that I can remember. I turned 30 and we met my very dearest friend Michelle and her husband in Calgary for a weekend of shopping, dining, Stuart Macleaning, and giggling - all sans children, oh except for Sebastian who was two months old and still nursing. But he was so easy it was like having no kids - one night we were 4 hours at dinner and he slept in his carseat under the table the entire time without so much as a squeak. That was a great birthday and I give Hugh much kudos for coming up with the idea and making it happen. It completely makes up for my birthday the first year we were married.

That year we had moved to Vernon from Fort St. John 2 months earlier. Hugh was just starting as a youth pastor and I had been working retail for about a month so we were quite literally poor as church mice. That year we went out to Kelly O'Briens (had to take advantage of the free birthday dinner of course) and Hugh handed me a nicely wrapped parcel that turned out to be a pair of black gloves which I needed and appreciated. A few weeks later I was at an outdoor event of some kind with our new church trying to get to know people, wearing my new sueded black gloves - not real suede, sueded. There's a difference. Anyway it was snowing and with my gloved hands I had brushed the snow off my face throughout the evening. Can you see where this is going yet? When I got home and went to wash my make-up off I saw, to my horror, my face was covered in black, almost camo-like streaks. Awesome.

Now I get that we didn't have much money and I was truly grateful for the gloves, well until the dye came off on my face, but it really rankled when 6 months later for Hugh's birthday he got an xbox. It only took him 6 years to make it up to me. I'd say I got some good mileage out of that one wouldn't you?

This year I'm turning a very anti-climactic 31. We're not doing anything elaborate to celebrate like last year but I am going out for dinner and then to a movie with my husband who I will get all to myself; and since we haven't been out on a date without our kids since last year at my birthday that feels like a real gift indeed.

Hugh was quick to mention that we didn't go out for his birthday this year and that it would be my turn to do some making up. However if the movie tonight turns out to be boring maybe we'll do some making out - I think that should cover it don't you?

Life may now resume.

I have officially worked the Twilight fever out of my system (mostly). I've finished the books. I've read the leaked copy of Midnight Sun online. I've read everything on the Stephenie Meyer website. I've seen the movie and I've watched all the youtube interviews with the cast I can handle.

A few thoughts about Twilight...

1. Book 2 "New Moon" was my favourite of the official series.
2. The 264 pages of "Midnight Sun" (Twilight re-written from Edward's perspective) was my favourite of them all and I really hope Stephenie Meyer finishes it.
3. Book 4 has a very bizarre plot twist which I'm still not sure how I feel about.
4. The word "russet" was so overused in the books potatoes now make me twitchy. Surely there's got to be another description for reddish-brown!
5. The movie was disappointing. The special effects of the superfast running scenes were so terrible several rows (ours included) burst out laughing.
6. I loved Rob Pattinson as Edward even if the emo angst was a trifle overdone. And by trifle I mean extremely.
7. Although I appreciate the efforts brunette actress Nikki Reed put in to transform herself into a blonde (even bleaching her skin), visually the casting of Rosalie was very disappointing.
8. Kristen Stewart (Bella) is PAINFUL in interviews. I was actually squirming in agony watching one.
9. The casting for the bad guys was great! I am not at all surprised that Volchok (The O.C. kills Mischa Barton's character off) makes a great vampire.
10. As cheesy and overdone as this movie was at times I can't wait for "New Moon" to hit theatres.

Now back to reality... Isn't Christmas or something coming soon?

As I was making dinner yesterday...

"Ava let's play the vampire game. I'll be the vampire."

"But I want to be the vampire too, Tristan!"

"Maybe we could both be vampires?"

What? Vampire? Where on earth....? I know I've been obsessed with Twilight but they can't possibly... They're only 4!

"Hey Tristan I have a good idea! You can be the vampire and I'll be the werewolf."

"Yeah! Yeah Ava! That's a great idea! I want you to be the werewolf!"

Crap! Crap! Crap! After all the grief I have given Hugh over the video games thing after Tristan started playing "killing"! How on earth did they pick this up? I'm glad Hugh's not home to hear this. I will never live this down...

"Tristan who should be the Mummy King?"

"How 'bout Sebastian be's the Mummy King?"

What? There's no Mummy King in Twilight.

"Oh yeah! Great idea! And let's sing the song too!"

Song? There's a song? What song?

"Weeeeee're youuuuuu're baaaaackyard friends, the backyaaaaardigans....and we'll probably sing a song and we'll maybe dance along..."

Of course! The Halloween episode where Mad Scientist Tasha invites Werewolf Tyrone, Mummy King Uniqua, and Vampire Pablo to Austin's surprise Monster Ball birthday party. Looks like I can still be self-righteous about the video games after all.