Tock-it Milk and Bingo

When Brooke was first learning to drink regular milk, she never could get to love it like most kids do. Rather, she wouldn't drink it at all. So we started putting chocolate syrup in it, and VOILA, she loved it! And guess what? We've never been able to break her of the habit. She now distinguishes between chocolate milk and white milk, which is only for babies (in her book). So when Jack transitioned to regular milk last year, I was determined to keep him on and not allow him to get hooked on chocolate milk. Everything worked fine until a few weeks ago when Jack figured out that he could sip Brooke's milk whenever he found it unattended and - darn it! - it tastes better than his! Then he started offering her to "trade?" (naturally she declines) and now he's escalated to full-on demanding it. And it's not chocolate milk, it's TOCK-IT MILK! Heaven help us. Thank goodness they sell two-packs of giant Hershey's Syrup at Costco, right?



Brooke is having so much fun with a game that her Uncle Clark got her for Christmas, called United States Bingo. She doesn't totally get the concept of filling up a card to win the game, but she does love certain states because they have pictures of industries that she's decided she likes. So when we play, she always has to have the cards for Florida (because they have flamingos, palm trees), Hawaii (Pineapple), Maine (blueberries and lobsters) and inexplicable, New Jersey (shipping!) She is a real kick.


In other news, I'm up to 12 lbs. lost in 4 weeks and couldn't be happier about it! I'm going to keep on keepin' on... got quite a few more till I reach my goal, which I expect will happen sometime in late summer or early fall. As of today I have one pair of pants that is officially too big now. Bring it on!

Friday Misc.

I'm a little grumpy this morning because after having a very good week (or so I thought) on weight watchers, I weighed myself for Biggest Loser this morning and have only lost 1.8 lbs.! I mean, it's a loss, so I'm happy about that - and if I continued to lose 1.8 lbs. each week, I'd eventually get to my goal, but it's still not "wowing" me. I guess after watching The Biggest Loser on TV I have a distorted perspective of what a reasonable weekly loss should be. Those people manage to lose anywhere from 8-20 pounds per week, it's so awesome. Obviously I am not working out every day, all day, like they are so I have to remind myself of that. Hopefully next week will be better, I'm going to keep the faith and keep doing what I'm doing.

I'm also grumpy because at 10pm last night, while I was reading in bed, my phone beeped so I ran down to see who was texting me so late at night and it was my babysitter, who is sick and can't come today. BLAH! I had a whole morning of working out and reading and who-knows-what else planned while Brooke was at school. Now it will be me and Jack... which means no working out, reading, etc. The last time I took Jack to the daycare at my gym he wailed so hard they paged me back after 5 minutes, so I'm nervous to try it again. It's worse than not going at all to get there and get dressed and get started only to stop after 5 minutes. So today I will either try that again or just bag it and take Jack to the Children's Museum for a couple hours while Brooke is in school. I happen to have a half-off coupon right now, so it would be really cheap.

How's that for a morning cup 'o pessimism? I need to get back in a positive frame of mind. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Oh my goodness!

I've lost 4.6 lbs. in one week! My first weigh-in for Biggest Loser 6 was this morning. I'm off to a great start... wish me strength!

Late night ramblings

Yo Gabba Gabba Heaven at the Kennedy House

I'm not sure why I'm blogging instead of going to bed - it's almost midnight and everyone else in the house is asleep. I confess that this quiet time is golden to me. Even if it means staying up really late and sacrificing sleep, it's heaven to putter around and do whatever I want, without being whined at by anyone.

Brooke and I decided to host a Valentine Party for her pre-school classmates. I just finished the invitations and they are pretty adorable, if I do say so myself! Here is a photo of the front. The inside has a cute verse printed in red in a great font called Harrington. (I wanted Aged but I was too cheap to pony up the $29 and buy it.) We asked each child to bring a small (under $10) Valentine gift to exchange. Our friend Whitney, who works at the stamping store, helped us design it and also sold us this super fantastic elephant punch that makes a perfectly adorable elephant that even has an ear that sticks out. Too cute for words. Of course, my elephant-crazed girl has punched no less than 1000 elephants in all the colors of the rainbow and "sprinkled" (her word) them throughout the house.


I think the party is going to be a blast. We're making all kinds of pink and red foods, cupcakes, home made candies, and have even started collecting some fun things for goody bags. I even found a couple of fun projects at Oriental Trading Co. that are Valentine-themed (including one for girls and one for boys). Ah, I love planning a kids' party... and I figure since Brooke's birthday is during the summer and over a holiday weekend, it's unlikely that she will be able to do something with all of her class, so we'll have this party now and then do something special with one or two friends on her birthday.

In other news... I joined Weight Watchers last night and I'm happy to say that my first day is over and went OK! They have really improved their program since I tried it (briefly) in 2006. I have to admit I'm impressed. The online tools are fantastic - online tracking, food value lookups, recipes, etc. Tonight I made a Weight Watchers coconut shrimp recipe for dinner and it was quite good! Of course, it would have been fantastic with some corn-syrup laden dipping sauce, but I survived without it. I have a long list of "weight-watchers approved" foods that I'm anxious to pick up tomorrow to make things a little bit easier for me.

OK, it's officially after midnight and I must go to sleep. If I can drag myself out of bed early enough, I'm going to try and hit the gym before the munchkins wake up and the craziness starts.

A fresh start

2009 = the year that I get serious about losing some weight and keeping it off!

Today is the first day of an online weight-loss competition a friend of mine has organized and I'm off to a good start. Had salad for lunch, went to the gym and walked on the treadmill for 47 minutes, ate an apple for a snack this morning. Wish me luck - there is a lot at stake for me, both personally in terms of my health, and also the competition prize money! Of course I already have a few ideas how I could spend that money...

Jack cracks me up. His vocabulary is exploding which is so fun. He is starting to have real preferences - for his food (he points to what he wants in the fridge, usually mozzarella sticks) and his clothing too. His favorite shirt is his football sweatshirt and he asks for it by name - "football!" while pointing to his chest. It's quite adorable. When you confirm what he's asking for he nods vigorously and says "Mmm!" He is working on a whole bunch of two syllable words, like airplane, football, Brookie, and, inexplicably, pinecone. He imitates everything Brooke does, including asking "why?" incessantly which is a bit much for one mom considering both of my kids now ask why whenever I tell them to do anything. He adores his dog, Leo, and calls "Yee-Oh!" loudly, including yelling "Yee-oh, pee pee!" loudly out the back door as Leo tries to do his business with a shred of dignity. It's quite hilarious.


Brooke had a concert in pre-school today, which was postponed from before Christmas due to the snowstorm we had. It was darling. They all had percussion instruments (jingle bells, shakers, triangles, sanblocks...) and sang about 6 songs. I got some video on my Blackberry but am not sure how to get it off the phone and post it. Brooke was really proud of herself and had to restrain herself from running over to hug me several times during the concert.