The Biggest Loser

I started a 'Biggest Loser' competition at work about ten weeks ago. Twenty-three coworkers signed up for the challenge. Everyone was excited and determined.

Weekly weigh-ins would be optional. All that was required was a $10 deposit into the 'prize pot' as well as an initial weigh-in and then a final weigh-in ten weeks later. A chart was hung in a central location so that people could log their progress if they chose to do so.

Wednesday was the final weigh-in. Eight people showed up and only five people had lost ten or more pounds.

Disappointing? Yes. Surprising? Not really.

Taking care of yourself is hard.

Upon starting back at work this fall, it took me all of six months to gain fifteen pounds. FIFTEEN. I was taking care of my students and job responsibilities, taking care of the house, taking care of my kids. Myself? Not so much.

I ate ALL of my kids' Halloween (Christmas and Valentine's too) candy. There were nights that I ate dinner... twice. When I was alone in the car, I'd hit a drive-thru window for one (or two) large orders of fries. I finished my kids' waffles, chicken nuggets and ice cream. I couldn't walk through the kitchen without grabbing a handful of something-- sugary cereal, cookies, chips. When Liam would wake up crying in the middle of the night, he would get a bottle and I would get a few handfuls of M&Ms. I was like a human vacuum cleaner.

I was 'too busy' and 'too tired' to work out. I deserved to sit on the couch every night.

Soon, my closet started shrinking. I was having a hard time putting together enough clothes for the week that fit. I was changing outfits two, three, four times each morning-- trying to find something that looked decent. My jeans became unbearably tight and yoga pants became my new best friend.

I'm not sure when I bottomed out. Maybe it was after Will and I made two dozen chocolate chip cookies one night and he woke to find all said cookies gone. Maybe it was when I found myself eating day old french fries from Liam's car seat. I was getting winded by the stairs at work and racing my four-year-old was getting harder and harder. Maybe it was the impending dread of chasing my kids around Hurricane Harbor and running into current and former students in a bathing suit. It was probably a combination of things.

Ten weeks later and I'm down those 15 pounds-- back to where I started this fall. It was hard. But it wasn't THAT hard.

Binging on cookies, fries and ice cream is good; but buying a great dress and being proud of the way you look is better. Sitting on the couch with munchies in hand every night is good; but the pride of finishing a few miles on a cool night at the shore is better. Feeling good about yourself-- the choices you make and the example you set for your kids-- that's the best.

Why a "Second Wife" Would be a Good Thing

In this blog post, I'll be referring to Erick as Husband since this post is hypothetical, doesn't refer to my life in anyway, and will never happen.
***********************************************************************
Dictionary.com and Wikipedia (my favourite website and also my nickname) both define "plural marriage" as "polygamy" and "polygamy" is defined as "the condition or practice of having more than one spouse at one time." In fact, in you look up "plural marriage" on Wikipedia, the site immediately directs you to an article about polygamy and Mormonism.
I'm not 100% sure why plural marriage and Mormonism is still so linked. More and more non-Mormon Christians are embracing plural marriage. Now, when I say "plural marriage," I don't mean those weird women in prairie dresses and bouffant hairdos from the compound raid a few years ago. I'm also not talking about creepy 50 year old men who marry 13 year old girls. I'm not talking about those men who marry one woman in one state and then another woman in another state who don't know about each other until the man dies and the two wives come together for the will-reading and mad-capped madness and murder ensues (of course, I could just be watching too many episodes of Law & Order). I'm talking about consenting adults who enter into a marriage with more than one spouse.
Mostly, it's men who take more than one wife. You hardly ever hear of a woman who knowingly wants--and takes--more than *shudder* one husband. I watch Big Love. I know the social stigma that goes along with being a plural wife: living in secret, children of second--or third--wives who don't get included in Christmas card pictures, insurance fraud, blah, blah, blah. What I want to talk about is the good stuff that plural marriage can produce.
Imagine you're exhausted after taking care of your kid(s) all day. The house never seemed to get straightened up. There was an epic battle over "Who took my sippy cup?" (this battle is also possible in a house with one child). A PB&J sandwich somehow ended up being jammed into the DVD player. Potty training is more of a tunnel dream than a reality. Now you have to make dinner and listen to your husband complain about his day in the office (when--at this point in your day--you'd kill to be stuck in a cubicle for 8 hours). Then you wash dishes (or load the dishwasher, if you're lucky), bathe the kid(s), and get them settled into bed after several abortive attempts at bedtime. SIGH! It's finally quiet. Time to catch up on your reading/Facebooking/blogging/"Glee"-watching, right? Nope, your hubby's giving you that look. You know the look. It's the one he gave you the night you conceived your little darling(s). You know what would be a lifesaver, right now? A SECOND WIFE.
Yeah, I said it.
I would hand over sex duties to a second wife in a second. Don't get me wrong, I love sex. I do. It might take some coaxing some nights, but I do enjoy it once I've involved and engaged. But sometimes I think that having another woman around to pick up the slack would be great. Now, when I say "another woman," I'm not talking about having Alice from The Brady Bunch around to make lunches. I'm talking about a second wife to help with housework, bullshit with, and have sex with Husband when I'm just not feeling "The Look" nights.

"Wouldn't you get jealous of another woman having sex with your husband?!"
Nope. I'm not the jealous type. And if I agree to a plural marriage, I understand that Second Wife will be having sex with Husband. In that case, he's her Husband too, which means I can't be jealous of them doin' it.
"Wouldn't you hate having another woman's kids around?!"
How would it be any different from having step kids? Erick has a daughter from his high school relationship. She's 16 and reminds me a lot of me at 16--moody, artistic, mouthy, and never, ever, ever wrong. Ever. Besides, maybe Second Wife would be able to have that ever-elusive Andrew Liam Stott.
"What if you got divorced?!"
Then I'm divorced. And Second Wife can marry Husband and be First Wife.

Look, I'm not making light of polygamy when it's that dark and scary plural marriage with underage girls being Eighteenth Wife and pregnant by the time she's 14; or when older men force out the younger men so all the marriage-aged girls can be snatched up by old guys; or when families with multiple spouses defraud the government with insurance fraud, food stamps, tax breaks, and etc. I'm talking about having another wife around to pick up the slack when you just can't handle it anymore. Now, who wouldn't want that break every once and a while?

PS Message me if you're interested in the position of Second Stott Wife. Must be able to clean, cook, be willing to have a baby or two, love Philadelphia sports teams, and live in a tiny apartment in Hillbilly Hell, PA.

TGIF

Balancing two children and a full-time teaching job is pretty rough stuff.

I never feel fully prepared for my job. Papers sit ungraded for weeks and lessons are planned at the very last minute. Keys are left at home, passwords are forgotten and deadlines are missed. I'm late for morning help, behind in my curriculum and I can never seem to find a pencil.

At the same time, I never feel fully engaged as a parent. My kids spend nearly nine hours at daycare/preschool. NINE. The morning is a delicate fusion of mad rush and gentle coaxing. Getting the kids out of their nice, warm beds and comfy pajamas in order to be at their respective schools by the ungodly hour of 7:30 am. Prying toys out of their little hands and shoving waffles down their throats as we stuff their arms into jackets and strap them into car seats. We drop them off, give them kisses and hugs and don't see them again until around four o'clock that afternoon.

Some weeks are better than others. Some weeks we almost seem to make it all work. This was not one of those weeks.

The brief time we spent as a family was earsplitting. Liam was crying. Will wasn't listening. Liam was screaming. Will was acting crazy. They were fighting over toys and snacks and sippy cups. Liam demanded to play with staplers and scissors and kitchen utensils; preferring to just dump his eleventy billion toys all over the floor and throw them against the wall rather than actually play with them. Will was running in circles, refusing to share or clean up and talking shouting like a baby, giving us his best "Max" impression.

From experience in my work, I've learned that when a lesson goes badly, the students are rarely to blame. It's usually the structure of the lesson or the decisions made by the instructor that are responsible. I have a similar attitude towards parenting.

Bill and I were tired this week-- mentally and physically. We didn't get down on the floor and play. We didn't pull up a chair and color. We cooked and cleaned. We gave baths and changed diapers. We dolled out snacks and brought down baskets of toys from shelves too high to reach. We warned and yelled and gave time-outs, but ultimately, we weren't in the trenches as usual. We were counting down the hours until bed time, wishing away the few precious hours that should be most important.

So I'm renewing a promise that I often make and occasionally forget. Dishes and laundry can wait and dinner can be grilled cheese or pancakes and eggs. Mental baggage from work can be checked at the door. When patience has been depleted at the end of a school day, it must be renewed. When energy is exhausted, it must be restored.

Next week will be better.

And in the meantime... thank God it's Friday.

My Newest Obsession

Over the years, I've had more than a few obsessions:
New Kids on the Block

Titanic--more specifically, Kate and Leo

British sitcoms (this is the cast of the classic As Time Goes By)

And more than a few have hung around:
New Kids on the Block

Titanic--more specifically, Kate and Leo

British sitcoms (this is the cast of the hysterical Gavin and Stacey)

But now a new obsession has surfaced that is krunking all over my past obsessions. Well, maybe except the Brit coms. Still love them.
NBC has a new show called Who Do You Think You Are? on at 8 pm on Friday nights. If you've seen me expound on it on Facebook, I won't bore you with all the details again. It's really just a big commercial for Ancestry.com and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
Since the show's been on, I started to construct a family tree and I've pestered my poor maternal grandmother for so many details about our family history, I think her head is spinning:
"What was your mother's maiden name?"
"When did she die?"
"Where did she die?"
"Where was your father born?"
"When did he die?"
"Where did he die?"
I doubt these are questions that are easy for her to answer. Her father died when he was only 63. My maternal grandfather is the first in his Irish immigrant family born in the US. His family history is even more sketchy and a very sensitive subject. The IRA and English authorities are involved, according to family lore.
So, I have this tree sitting on Ancestry.com and I've been adding to it little by little, gleaning information from my grandmother and my great aunt. The last names on my grandmother's side are so similar (Brogan and Bagan) that it's impossible to keep who's who straight. I made the mistake of giving my whole family cart blanche to move names and dates around on the family tree willy-nilly and I panic every time I get an email saying, "Oh, So-and-so isn't there. He's there, so I moved him." I also put the wrong birth date down for my sister, so I got a scathing email from her about that. I've been getting her birthday wrong since Day 1 (January 21st? January 22nd? Oh, I don't know), so I don't know why that was such a big surprise to her.
I've also entered NBC's Ancestry.com sweepstakes. The Grand Prize winner gets $20,000 in travel money (Send me to Ireland! Please!!), an 8 hour consultation with an expert genealogist, 5 experts in fields relevant to {my} personal family history to help {me} learn even more and an Annual World Deluxe subscription for {me} and 5 family members. Let me tell you: that Annual World Deluxe subscription is nothing to sneeze at. For a year, the price (billed all at once, not in monthly increments) is $300. Considering my family are from both Ireland and Prince Edward Island, Canada (eh? you hoser), that subscription would be a lifesaver! Of course, the idea of flying to Ireland on Ancestry.com's and NBC's $20,000 tab to drink Guinness and Irish step dance with pasty, redheaded leprechauns in pubs--I mean, research my family--sounds like a sweet deal.
PS:
In the middle of this post, I panicked again and clicked over to Ancestry.com to delete certain peoples' ability to alter the family tree. Now it's like Christmas: "Here's the tree. Isn't it pretty? Now DON'T TOUCH IT."