It Turns Out I'm Neurotic

I’m a neurotic individual.

I know, big shocker, right?

To be fair, most people are neurotic in some way. But I- always the overachiever- have managed to expand my neurosis to many areas of my life.  

My husband is so lucky.

One of the many manifestations of my neurosis is the food journal I keep for my daughter.  The food journal is a little notebook in which I record every single thing she eats, at every meal, every day.

I started the food journal when she first ate solid food at five months, and now at thirteen months,the insanity continues.

I’m not exactly sure why I feel the need to document every morsel of food that goes into her mouth. The obvious answer is that the cause of any potential allergic reaction will be easily identified.  I have heard of other people writing down the new foods that their babies are introduced to for allergy-related reasons, but this doesn’t explain why I write down every food, at every meal. I guess it’s just one of the many things I do “just in case”. 

Just in case of what? 

Just in case I ever need to know what she ate for breakfast on July 8, 2012?  

Just in case she doesn’t get into Harvard one day, and I need to try to figure out where we went wrong? 

Just in case I need evidence that I am, indeed, insane?

My husband asked me how long I intended to continue journaling my daughter’s food intake. I hadn’t given it that much thought. He envisions this continuing into her adolescent years:

Food Journal Entry 5485: Child’s Age: 16

Observed child from bushes last night with binoculars, drinking a beer. This food has been introduced ahead of schedule- not due to be introduced for another (at least) five years. No allergic reaction noted.

Point taken, Husband.

Possibly the most neurotic thing about this whole food journaling business is that it didn’t occur to me that this was not a normal thing to do until my husband pointed it out to me- of course  I write down every food my daughter eats, at every meal, every day. Doesn’t everybody? 

I guess not.

Hmmm.

This begs the question, what else do I do that I think is normal that in actuality….well…. isn’t?

How To Eat Like A Baby

How to eat like a baby:

1. Whine and Complain and food will miraculously appear on your plate.

2. Proceed to assess the edibility of said food by carefully inspecting it, smushing it in your hands, and  delicately massaging it into your hair.

3. Re-assess favourite foods daily. Enjoying a particular food on several occasions is a little excessive. Once a food has been readily accepted, it's probably time to announce your newfound dislike for this former favourite.

4. Express this dislike by sticking out your tongue. Make sure the offending food is still present on your 

tongue when you stick it out, lest the person feeding it to you be confused about the source of your 

disgust.

5. Decide that the high chair is hungry as well and generously share one quarter of your meal with it.

6. Act highly offended when someone tries to spoon feed you (how barbaric!). 

7. Grab the spoon, demand a second spoon, and delight in the joy of banging spoons on the highchair tray.

8. Suddenly realize that you have not yet eaten anything, and burst out crying at this horrifying realization.

9. Rub more food into your hair.

10. Repeat steps 1. through 9.

11. Decide you weren’t hungry after all.



If you like my blog, or if even if you don't like my blog, but you like me, or if you're just feeling generous, please click on the little brown banner. One click = one vote, and that's all you have to do. Pretty please?

Avocado Woes

An avocado costs about $2 (Yes, food is expensive in Canada).  I figure that my daughter smushes 80% of the avocado into her highchair, hands, and hair. Thus, I have just paid $1.60 for the privilege of cleaning smushed avocado. 

Weight Loss After Pregnancy

How awesome is it that my crappy camera didn't pick up the number on the scale!

Weight loss after pregnancy is hard. Really hard. And it certainly doesn’t help that everywhere you look there is another picture of a celebrity with rock hard abs, two weeks postpartum. Well, if I had a personal trainer, a chef, a live-in nanny, and a professional airbrusher/photoshopper, I’d look like that too. But I don’t.  However, I am now finally below my pre-pregnancy weight, and if I wear a loose shirt and squint really hard, I can almost forget about the muffin toppy paunch that’s sticking around like fruitcake in January.

Anyway, paunch aside (because I choose to ignore it), I am happy to have finally shed the postpartum weight.  And because you asked (okay, you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway), here is what helped me with my weight loss after pregnancy:

No Set Deadline: I’m no good with deadlines. Deadlines make me stressed. Stress makes me eat. You get the picture. So I really didn’t push myself. Like reeeaaallly didn’t push myself. Okay, so this might not have been the best approach, because I probably ended up actually gaining weight during the first three months postpartum (I say probably because I never went near a scale- I’m not that stupid.)  I decided to go easy on myself, because after the trauma of childbirth and the sleep deprivation that comes with caring for a newborn, I just wasn’t up for calorie counting.  When I was ready (and by ready, I mean becoming a major chubster), I decided it was time to bite the bullet (instead of the bagel) and get thin and healthy again.

Coffee and Club Soda: Now before you get all judgey, no, I did not replace food with coffee and club soda. Ew. I love food, and I believe in eating a healthy, balanced diet.  My problem is deserts. My love for deserts knows no limits, and my husband will tell you that I once ate an entire cheesecake in one sitting. I admit to nothing.  Anyway, my philosophy is that I need to have some kind of treat every day. It becomes a ritual, a time to relax, and to be indulgent. I’ve realized, though, that this treat doesn’t need to be desert. So I decided to start having no cal or low cal treats. I didn’t drink any coffee during pregnancy, so sipping my travel mug of coffee every day has become my favourite luxury. And as a fun, fizzy alternative to water, I have Club Soda every so often. Sometimes I pretend there’s booze in it, just to give it that extra kick. Of course, I still do eat deserts (I’m not a fan of deprivation), but I’m trying to learn the art of moderation. I've come a long way since those cheesecake days.


Walks: Since my daughter was born, I have not only developed mom guilt, but also pet-owner guilt, because as anyone with a new baby and a dog knows, the dog suddenly ranks a lot lower in the pack, which is not easy on the dog. In an attempt to alleviate my guilt, and my dog’s self-esteem problem, I have been trying to get out for walks with the baby and the dog as frequently as possible.

Making Baby Food: I’ve always gone through phases of obsessing about nutrition, and then I’ll get lazy and go through phases where I’ll have pancakes for dinner. However, now that I’m responsible for making nutritional choices for someone who can’t make them herself, I’m super motivated to do it right, and to not feed her pancakes for dinner (too often). As a result, I’m in a nutrition conscious mind frame and that’s helping me eat well.

All these strategies aside, I think the main reason that I’ve been able to shed the baby weight is because I am in a positive state of mind these days because of the joy that my daughter brings to my life. So, I attribute my postpartum weight loss to her. But really, it's only fair that she be the one to help me get skinny, when she’s the one who made me fat in the first place.

10 Reasons Why I Couldn't Be A Crunchy Granola Momma

I first heard the term “granola” (in reference to something other than food) when I was about thirteen years old in Junior High School.  The word was used to describe my sense of style (or lack thereof, I suppose), and I was a little disappointed as it certainly wasn’t the look I was going for. The popular clothes at that time at my school were those excessively girlie, Clueless-inspired outfits. Think: short skirts, knee high socks, feather boas, and pastel coloured Mary Janes.  Being called “granola” in a sea of glammed up, lipstick-wearing pre-adolescent girls was an unequivocal insult, but I probably was a little crunchy (both in dress and in personality), and looking back, it kind of makes me proud.

Since those accidental granola days, I have grown up to become decidedly mainstream, but I like to think that I still have a little crunch in my cardigan. After all, I was a vegetarian for most of my life (I’m now an almost-vegetarian, as I started eating chicken) and I do make my own (mostly organic) baby food, but it pretty much stops there.   

Growing up in downtown Toronto, I’ve always been quite familiar with the “bohemian”/ “hippie” subculture- if you can even call it a subculture- but since becoming a mom, I have realized that there is a whole other manifestation of this culture in the world of motherhood, and I am just now starting to learn about it.

I must say, I really respect the true crunchy mommas.  Okay, well some of the really radical crunchsters are a bit kooky, but for the most part, the so-called granola moms are just regular, good people who care about the environment, promote equality and free-thinking, and work hard to raise their children in a natural and healthy manner that reflects these values. Unfortunately, I realize that I’m just not cut out to be one of them. Here’s why:

1. I'm way too lazy to do cloth diapers. Plus, I'm addicted to Pampers reward points, and if I ditched the disposables now, I'd never get enough points for that $10 Starbucks gift card I've been saving up for- which leads me to Reason #2.

2.  I love Starbucks. Big bad corporate Starbucks with their delicious overpriced lattes that smell like shopping malls at Christmas time. Mmmm.

3.  And speaking of smell, what’s patchouli, anyway?

4.  Pregnancy did not make me feel beautiful. Waddling around with fat ankles, puking in public bathrooms, and stuffing my fat face with fried chicken just didn’t make me feel like some kind of radiant fertility goddess- but that’s just me.

5.  I suck at breastfeeding. No pun intended.

6.  I kill insects, and by “kill insects”, I mean I jump three feet in the air, scream, and get someone to kill them for me.  I really hope my daughter isn’t afraid of insects, so that as soon as she is old enough, she can kill them for me. And yes, I will be teaching her to kill them, not to just set them free outside where they can break in to my house again.

7.  I let my baby watch TV. You know, just a little bit, when I’m watching. It’s educational, I swear! ADHD isn’t real, right?

8.  I believe that triple chocolate cheesecake is a food group, and is a perfectly acceptable breakfast food. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if you eat it with your hands, there aren’t any calories in it. Baby-led weaning types, take heed!

9.  My baby has toys. Lots of toys. Not some assortment of items that she strung together while frolicking through a field of dandelions, but actual plastic, Made In China, bought at Toys R Us toys. And I like them.

10.  Epidural- enough said

All kidding aside, there are times when I feel like maybe I should be just a little bit crunchier because most of the ideas of natural parenting really do fit with my value system, but I also realize that I’m just a cake-for- breakfast, insect-killing, Starbucks-drinking kind of girl, and I’m okay with that.