In Like a Hippo

This week marks the one year anniversary of me leaving my house to go to an office three days a week, and then work from home the other days...becoming a true "working mom". Uggh. This time last year my husband and I were so stressed out. His job was shaky at best as the company he worked for struggled to stay in business. I switched my part time, work from home schedule to a salaried position with benefits, etc. A very similar situation to millions of people in 2010.

Ryan's new job was a true answer to the most specific prayer I've ever prayed and I am forever grateful to God for that. The whole mess was a false alarm and our family bounced right out of it. Unfortunately though, I kept my job. There was something else I held on to last spring...my winter weight gain.

March is usually my month to "step it up". I know I use that phrase a lot for fashion, hockey mom spirit, etc...but it always means "look hotter." In the case of March, I traditionally have to kick it into gear to drop my holiday/football party/hockey tournament/Valentine's candy FAT. I have been dieting in the spring my whole life. The first diet I remember clearly was in eighth grade when my friend Jackie put me on a diet. I believe the whole diet consisted of not getting my daily Sour Cream and Onion Tato Skins (best chip ever invented) fix from the Lincoln School vending machine. There also may have been boiled chicken and Cracklin Oat Bran involved in that diet, but subtracting the Tato Skins was a life changer at that point...and all I needed to step it up. Twenty Marches followed that Tato Skin diet and, minus the three that were spent pregnant, I've spent all of them stepping it up.

So March 2010, 20 years after the Tato Skins life changer of 1990, after twenty years of excercise, diet pills, vomiting, and fad diets...I didn't step it up. I completely let myself go...I stress ate, I drank two glasses of wine every night, I ordered takeout lunch at the office. In my busy new schedule something had to go, and it was my daily trip to the gym. Followed by the Y playground, big healthy lunch of salad, a can of tuna and balsamic, the shower, weigh in and walk to get the kids at school that used to consume my entire day. It used to take all day for me not to be fat! Notice I don't say it took all day for me to be skinny, I have never been skinny- not even in eighth grade. The goal is always- not fat.

I resolved last year that I was going to enjoy summer anyway, even though I couldn't fit into my short shorts (or any shorts). I bought a couple of skirts, and actually had a great summer not obsessing over my weight. But you only get one of those. This year, there's no excuse. I've been back to work a year, and not all employed people are overweight. But instead of just one winter of weight, I have two winters, a summer of not caring and several months of mommy guilt and stress pounds to shed. This is going to take more than a few weeks, but I have to start. Right Now (cue the Van Halen music). Its on, like fat girl donkey kong.

March has come in like a hippo (by the way I recently learned on Animal Planet that hippos are quite deadly, so its a good substitue for lion). I'm not sure what its going out like, maybe a lamb, maybe a cow, maybe a slightly slimmer hippo? We shall see. To be Continued...

The Hardest to Learn

I named my blog after the song by the Indigo Girls, which was a favorite in my college dorms. I've known the words to the song by heart for years http://www.metrolyrics.com/least-complicated-lyrics-indigo-girls.html and "the hardest to learn was the least complicated" truly speaks to my experience with motherhood. And the line "the kids are walkin home from school" reminds me of how much I wish my neighborhood was full of kids walking home in lieu of the SUV traffic that rivals Los Angeles at rush hour.

I've always been a pretty laid back mom, but it took me until my third baby before I gave up feeling guilty about it. I stopped stressing over all the scheduled nursing, waking and sleep training nonsense. I was all about keeping simple. I used to wear Luke in a sling everywhere, not because I'm a hippy but because I had two preschoolers to chase around. I breastfed because it was easy, but when I had to give a bottle it was formula, pumping was too....say it with me...complicated!

Now that my babies are not so much babies, but kids ages 10, 8 and 5...I try my best not to complicate things. When I thought about this blog last year I was still a stay at home mom. I was itching to cut out all the crazy from motherhood; from the baby music classes to driving kids to school early so that they can join the walking club- hello anyone else see the irony? I felt like it was more complicated than ever to raise kids, and I felt like we moms were making it that way. I was longing to be more of an old fashioned 50's style mom, who didn't have a car or cable or a gym membership and who's kids did chores and entertained themselves around the neighborhood.

Circumstances have changed and I now work outside the home. I've gotten a chance to make friends with a couple of moms outside of my usual circles. They don't have time to drive their kids to school, so their kids take the bus. If the kid forgets something at home, that sucks for them. If my kids forgets something at school and I am stuck at the office, I usually cry because I feel so guilty. The girls at the office don't fret about gifts for teachers or school events, in fact when I try to discuss such topics at work I have often gotten the reply "who do you hang out with?" and I just laugh...I hang out with people exactly like me!

I never guessed I could learn so much about motherhood from younger, working, single moms who've never even been to a PTA meeting. But I have...by just listening to my friend Amanda on the phone with her sons everyday after they get themselves home from school...I've learned about discipline, chores, independence and fierce mama bear love. I still don't know where my ideal throw back mom is hiding in 2011 but I know her kids are walkin home from school, or at least taking the bus.