Eat it, becasue it is green and I said so!

Why do foods that are so good for you, have to be completely disgusting? 

This morning I was giving my toddlers their morning snack, they were having raisins, applesauce and a cereal bar, and I looked for something healthy for me to get me through to lunch.  I found some fruit pouches that I had bought for the kids.  They advertised, "With Chia Seeds!  More amino acids, more antioxidents! Sustained energy! Only 60 calories!" I thought, "Sweet!  That will work."  I twisted off the cap and sucked up some fruit puree with chia seeds......

Ick.....just ick.  It tasted like I was eating blackberry seeds covered in slime.  Like I just took a cupful of tadpole eggs and sucked them up a straw!  I mean the fruit flavor was there, but the texture was too much like snot with crunchy bits in it.  I gagged and threw it away.  Which led me to think, why oh why do all of the things that are good for us, that our bodies need to function, taste like crap?

Take Kale.  I know it is good for you.  It is a superfood.  It is green, and has all those awesome nutrients and vitamins, but it just tastes like I picked a bunch of random woody green leaves and put them in a bowl.  I have tried to love kale.  I baked it and seasoned it because, "It tastes a lot like potato chips."  Uuummm, what kind of chips are you eating???  I have never in my life tasted a chip like that.  I have also tried adding it to soup because "It holds up better than other leafy greens like spinach."  Umm, nope, still slimey.  And I even tried baby kale in salad.  Even an entire bottle of ranch dressing could not cover up the bitterness.  Blech. 

Now how about Sweet potatoes?  Sweet potatoes are a superfood, right?  Too bad they are only really good with loads of butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar so that essentally you are eating pie as a side dish.  mmm, pie....

Whole wheat pasta.  Now granted, I can't even eat regular pasta with all of it's gluten anymore, but when I did, I was given the advice to switch to whole wheat, because "no one will notice the difference and it will add proitein and fiber to my family's diet".  This person needs their taste buds checked, because there is a HUGE difference in the taste.  It is heavy and dense and harder to chew.  Like trying to eat a forkful of garden hoses.  Even sauce can't hide the grittier texture to it.  Now all I can eat is corn pasta, and honestly, even IT tastes more like regular pasta than whole wheat does.

Tofu.  Please don't tell me that I am just not making it right, because it takes on whatever flavor you

cook it in.  That may very well be, but just because I marinate tofu in steak sauce, does not make this nastiness a steak. And you are not fooling me with tofurkey, or tofu crumbles, or tofu sausage or hot dogs either.  I know when I am eating a hot dog and when I am eating a tofu dog. One is yummy and an American tradition, the other is a meat free abomination.

I am not a picky eater by any means.  There are very few things that I will not eat.  Besides the items aforementioned, the only other thing I do not eat are oysters and mussles.  I am sorry, but Jim Gaffigan said it best:
 "Some guy found the first oyster and said, 'I found a rock that has a snot in it.'
 'Well what are you going to do with it?'
 'I'm gonna eat it.'
 'How's it taste?'
 'Like Pneumonia.'" 

I just cannot get past that texture.  People have said, "Oh just cover it with cheese and hot sauce, shoot it down the back of your throat and chase it with a shot of vodka."  I like cheese, I like hot sauce, and Lord knows I like vodka, but why can't I just have all of those things separately and skiip the gag reflex? 

And conversely, why do all of the things that taste so good, that our brains are drawn to wanting more of, are so very very bad for you?  I don't even have enough time to make a list of the food that will kill us.  But come on, Bacon?  Buffalo Wings?  Cheese?  Sausage?  Cheesecake?  Chocolate?  Why do these things have to be so bad for you?  It seems like something happened to our brains, some kind of weird wiring happened and all of a sudden the things we are supposed to eat and that are supposed to be good for us, became bad tasting, and the things that are bad for us and are supposed to be avoided, taste like heaven. 

They are called comfort foods for a reason.  They are not called, "get into those skinny jeans" foods.  They are comforting for when you are in pain, because you are sad because you are fat because you ate too many of those yummy foods, the same foods that you are shoving in your face to comfort yourself about.  There has to be a reason our brains like it so much. 

But I will say, if you can make kale, or chia seeds taste like bacon or chocolate, I will jump on board.  Until then, I will have to keep taking my vitamins.  They are gummy bears by the way.  See, SOMEONE got the memo that you can make bad tasting things taste like candy!

This one time....at an elementary band concert.....

Monday my son, Your royal highness, had his 5th grade band concert.

And let me just say before I get into this, I have a very very strong appreciation for band.  I played in

band from the time I was in 5th grade, all the way through college.  I met my husband at high school band camp, and almost all of my friends can be traced back to meeting at band, or some other sort of musical or theatrical endeavor that I was a part of at some time in my life.  Band is in my DNA.  Band is a part of me. This one time at band camp?  YES, I  have those stories (probably not as exciting as some of the racier stories in American Pie, but stories none the less).  So just know, I LOVE the arts, I LOVE band, and the fact that my son wanted to play in it in any capacity made me squeal like a little school girl, and weep tears of pride.

Also.  If you were to ask me who the best trumpet player in the entire world was, at this moment in time, I would proudly hold up a framed photo of my son playing his trumpet and say, "This redhead right here thank you very much."  So please no letters or posts in the comment section about what a terrible mother I am to post such a ranty blog about elementary school music concerts, and do I have a heart at all.  Yes I do, I love my child, he is wonderful and amazing, and all of that mom junk.  Back off.

To start this, I had to go to this concert, on my birthday.  My BIRTHDAY.  So there was no birthday dinner out.  There was barely time for cake after the dinner that I had to make  myself on my birthday, because people in this school district are complete freaks about showing up early to get a good seat, and apparently there is also a shortage of chairs at our elementary school. The concert started at 6:30, so we figured we would be wise to get there at 6, so we could sit up front and see our beloved.  We walked in, and I knew in an instant we did not arrive early enough.  The gym was packed!  What time did these freaks get there?  Did they just pack a picnic dinner and camp out right after the bell rang?  We were half an hour early, and we were in the back row!  What the heck??  Then to make matters worse, they didn't use ANY RISERS.  So we would be able to hear YRH play, but we were not going to be able to see diddly squat, because of all of the heads of the over acheivers that gathered here at 6 in the morning like it was opening night for a Star Wars movie.

I looked at the program, and not only was this for the band, but it was for the 4th grade orchestra, the 5th grade orchestra, the 5th grade band, the 3rd grade choir, the 4th grade choir, AND THE 5th GRADE CHOIR!!!  And everyone had like 5 songs!!

Now anyone who is even remotely familiar with kid performances always looks at the program and
does that kid performance math,"Okay, so 5 songs per group, times 3 or 4 minutes per song, equals.....holy hell!!  We are going to be here forever!!!"  And this is not like a high school performance where it might be even remotely well executed.  These kids are still really really early in the learning process of their instruments.  There are so many squeaks and squonks and screeches in just the band, let alone listening to the never ending flats and sharps of the violins that make you fluctuate from feeling depressed when they are flat, to wanting to break their violin when they are sharp, to the point that you are questioning your own knowledge of pitch by the end of the performance ("The whole thing couldn't have been that awful, could it?  Is there something wrong with my ears?  Am I tone deaf?  Or am I just entirely deaf after that?")

Meanwhile, as I am doing kid performance math in my head,  people keep filing in, and there is no where else to sit, so all of these moms and dads and realtives (grandmas and grandpas and extended family) are all standing in this elementarty lunchroom/gym and the body heat level is just rising.  It was gettng pretty hot and humid pretty fast.  The walls were sweating.

The teacher for orchestra gets up, and honestly, I think she must be cloistered in her rehearsal room by herself too much, because this woman LOVED the sound of her own voice.  She talked and talked, and talked about what the 4th graders have learned and how far they have come.  And then when they began to play, my only thought was, "Oh my god, if they are this bad NOW, what did they sound like BEFORE???"  The final song was not on the program, so she said, "Let's see if you can guess what this next song is."  I have to be honest.  They were playing the song "Dynamite", and I had NO idea what it was they were playing.  At all. It just sounded like a car riding extremely squeaky breaks in a rolling stop at a stop sign.

The 5th grade orchestra gets up there.  At one point the teacher, in a very long winded explanation, calls up her 3 soloists to do "Music from Harry Potter".  It was supposed to be the opening music from the movie. Three cats having a fight in an alley.  They groaned their way through it, as did I, and finaly it was time for my baby.

5th grade band!  I was so far back I couldn't see a thing, so I held up my sister's camera on her phone and zoomed in and could just make out the carrot top between two stands.  And just when they were counting off, the band director shifts over two paces and is RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SHOT!!  Dang it!!  So I did not SEE my baby perform, but I knew from listening that he was amazing and was perfect and wonderful, and better than all of the rest of the kids.

By this time my toddlers were at maximum capacity for staying even remotely close to our seats.  They were trying to lay down, they were climbing all over the chair, sliding in and out of the hole in the back of the chair, hopping from one lap to another.  After my baby boy was done performing, I looked at the clock.  It was 7:30.  We had already been there for an hour and a half, and they were only half way done with this concert!!  Oh. My. Gosh.

The admiral looked at me, and without saying it, we knew that this might end up turning into the boat ride from vacation all over again if we didn't do something about it.  He gets up, and says tersely, "I am going to take them in the hall way to run around.  Stay here and get YRH after the concert is over."

Now the choir portion was a bit more entertaining than the orchestra, because most of these kids had been using their voices all of their lives and so had, in fact, perfected the use of it, so the pitch was a little more on target, making me not want to swing alternating moods of suicide, then aggravated assault.  So it passed a little more quickly.  But the only parts that didn't were the directors.  I am not sure, but I seriously think that it must be in the job description that if you are a director, teacher, or group leader for children in some area, when it comes time to give an opening statement, you are officially crowned Johnny Public Speaker, and are commissioned to just drone on and on about everything you did all year.  Look honey, we get it.  You had to listen to this all year, and now want to make us as miserable as you were by showing us what it felt like to be inescapably trapped like you were.  But darlin, we came to see our kids play, not hear you talk.  We had to hear them rehearse at home all year, we KNOW how far they have come.  You did great.  I will get you a gift card to BW3's for a drink after the concert if you will just get off the mic and start waving your arms.  It is hot in here and Gramma Fanny behind me has been standing since 6:20, and her poor varicose veins are about to implode.  Let's speed up this rodeo shall we?

The show ended at 8:10, almost 2 hours after it began.  I collect the boy, and go out and find my husband and toddlers are in the van watching a movie.  They WERE in the hallway running up and down, but apparently they started rolling around on the floor, and were rolling through what the Admiral deemed as blood, and he got grossed out and decided containment was key to survival at that point.  (Though I will say, it could have been blood, but chances are it was probably paint or marker, or jelly or some other kid goo.  Admiral does has a little bit of a germ thing, so in his eyes, it was foreign, so it had to be blood or some other life threatening pathogen, and the children must be saved.)

So for my birthday this year, this was my celebration.  And yes it was long, and hot, and loud, and awful, but for my kid, I would do it again in a heartbeat.  I do want to make a recommendation to the school for the future.

1) SEPARATE the grades PLEASE!  Have a performance for just the 3rd grade, and then just the 4th grade and then a special one for the graduating 5th grade.  They are going off to middle school, to never be a little child again, so a little bit of exclusiveness in this area is really not going to hurt any one, and it would seriously cut down on time. There also just might be a chair available for Gramma Fanny to sit down on too.

2) TIME LIMITS on teacher's talking.  Let's treat it like the Oscars, and after 30 seconds, have the band play them off with some music.

You implement these practices, and I can guarantee happy parents and happy kids, and then maybe just maybe I will have time to go out and eat a dinner on my birthday that I did NOT have to cook myself, and also not have to inhale my cake. (of which I also made myself. Businesses, there are gluten intolerant people that need to celebrate birthdays too, it would be nice to have bakery cakes that are gluten free!!  But that is a post for another time.....)

Objects in the mirror may be closer than you think...

It has come to that time in a young woman's life again.  Time to get some new clothes.

As a mom, and woman in her late 30's, I have come to notice a few things about myself and the way I veiw my body.....

I DON'T want to view my body.

I have been doing the Weight Watchers for quite a while now, and it has come to the point where my clothes are starting to get a little ridiculous looking.  They are too big, they are hanging off of me, and I keep having to hitch up my pants.  In fact, a while back whilst walking in the Target, my pants actually fell down.  Thank God I was not in an aisle with anyone else, because that would have just been humiliating. For that person.   

I am still hanging on to my old clothes because, well, they are just super comfortable now.  They

were always super tight before, and now they are so roomy!  I like that my yoga pants are so loose that they get all twisted up on me when I am sleeping at night.  I like that my shirt is loose enough that I can pull my knees up under it when I am cold and make a little heat tent for myself.  I love that my jeans actually feel like pajama jeans now even though they are not.

But yesterday the admiral was looking at me, with what I thought was a 'hey baby' look, and just as I went walk over to him to wrap my arms around his neck, he says, "You think it may be time to go buy some new clothes?  What is going on with that shirt?  And your jeans are super baggy in the butt."  Mood sufficiently killed.

Had I not been with this man since we were 15 years old, I would have been all offended probably, but at this point in our lives, there are bigger fish to fry in the offensive pool, than just a comment about clothes.

I went over to the mirror and took a look, and for the first time I realized how bad it was. 

I looked homeless. 

This is what my husband, kids, and people I babysit for have been looking at for a long time now.
Time to go shopping.

But this is the thing.  I haaaaaaaaaate shopping for myself. I do.  I turn into Ebeneezer Scrooge, and my purse clenches tighter than Gollum guarding his 'precious'. 

This is how it will inevitably go down:

I will get all of the kids to bed, because I refuse to shop for clothes with any kind of baggage over my head, including texts from the admiral of "where is?", "How do I?", and "What do they?" .  I do not want to be interrupted from my well deserved personal hell to answer questions about the little people who are the cause of the havoc wreaked on my body.  I do not need the reminder that I am a mother of four, and have the abs to prove it.

I will then head out to my favorite place to feel depressed about clothes, Old Navy.  I shop there, because honestly, they sometimes carry the size I need, and most of the time, they have bright colors, and I look much better in bright colors.  Bright fat is much prettier to look at than black, grey, or beige fat.  And the commercials are pretty awesome, right?  All of these cute model type people looking all perfect and amazing in it.  Having fun family time on vacation, or having a picnic or swimming together.  "Come shop here, and we will give you the life you always wanted!"  I fall for it every time. 

I will spend the first 15 minutes I am there trying to convince myself that it is ok to look at the regular rack, instead of heading right to clearance.  I love the clearance rack, but the problem is I need summery type clothes, and right now, clearance is all winter stuff.  I don't need that.  But when I get there, I am compelled to shop it, and end up coming home with 5 long sleeve shirts to wear in the 90 degree humid weather we have here in Ohio.  No good.

I finally talk myself out of clearance, and head over to look at shorts.

I look all over for just the right pair of shorts, in my size, in a color I like, that are not too short, and not to long, (being short with Corgi legs, this is a feat in and of itself), and shorts that 'speak' to me.  "Come buy me!  We will do things together!  We will be fun, and play games, and go to the beach together!  It will be a summer to remember if you spend it with me!"  

I find that unicorn, that pair of shorts that are all of these things.  Adorable pattern, perfect length, possibly my size, and shouting "We will make beautiful memories together this summer!"  I head to the back, to try them on.

Side note here, what is UP with those little kiosk looking changing rooms with the curtain in the middle of the shopping area?  Any crazy person can walk buy and just open that thing!  This is a terrible idea, and when I have kids with me, I will never ever ever set foot in one of those things.  That is just asking for a YouTube video of my naked butt!

I get back there and take off my shoes,
take off my pants,
and pull on the shorts.

The first thing I notice is, my hairy white-as-snow legs with all of the awesome blue veins just screaming out for some kind of sun.  It is like my legs are gasping at the light, "NOO!!!  It stings!  Put the jeans back on!"  I then fasten the shorts, (most of the time you can insert the word 'try' here as well.) which are probably too tight, and look at my muffin top.  I sigh, because in my head when I picked these out I could envision myself wearing these.  Now as I look at myself busting out of them like a can of biscuits, I am unhappy because I am:  a) not as far along as I thought I was in the weight loss, and b)bummed because there are no bigger sizes available. However,  Kiki the clerk says there will be more in later in the month. 

Now I am standing here bummed because I look like this in these shorts, bummed because I have to go back out there and look again, bummed because Kiki is a size 2, 22 years old, and doesn't know anything about having kids, and is looking at me with pity on her face, to which I know in her head she is thinking 'poor old lady', and I don't want to even be shopping for clothes in the first place!

I take the shorts off, and I watch myself in front of the largest mirror in the history of mirrors.  I see every ripple, roll, and stretch mark, every lump of cellulite,  as I wiggle out of these shorts that once were so cute to me, and now I view these shorts as a betrayal.  I think to myself, "Look at you, shorts, you looked so cute and adorable on the shelf.  You lured me in, shorts. I fell for it.  I did.  You told me I would be prettier with you on.  You and I were going to do things together this summer.  You and me shorts, against the world.  But it was all just a ploy to get me naked in a room full of mirrors.  You are the worst kind of evil, shorts.  I abhor you. I refuse to let you do this to any other woman!"  as I hang them as crookedly as possible back on the hanger, letting the true size and shape of them show, no tucking of the waistband into itself to make it look smaller on the rack.  It will be seen for its true nature!

I will go through this about 80 more times. I will maybe find a pair or two of shorts that are ok, but not awesome, and a couple of shirts that aren't terrible, but mostly I end up leaving the store poorer, and pretty depressed. 

I do, however,  feel like Old Navy knows what they are doing, though. They know that most of the women leaving their store are going to walk out feeling pretty awful about themselves.  How do I know this? Because right outside of the parking lot, there is a McDonalds with their giant sign for a "McCafe!!" and a Krispie Kreme with their "Hot Donut" sign blazing bright red. 

Bastards.