To Be Adored

Jake certainly has built up a reputation for himself on Valentine's Day. I consider V-day to be similar to our anniversary, since that's our first kiss--restaurant and a movie--bring me flowers anniversary.

Every year (if nature allows) Jake secretly picks me some nun orchids. Nun orchids are hard to find, except at this time of year and except from Kahana.

You'd think I'd catch on by now, when he was doing this.

This year he had Amaya, which is why I didn't expect it, and neither did she. I guess the whole time they were tromping around in the bushes she was pleading, "I wanna go home, Daddy. I wanna go home."

He also drew me a very flattering (if I may say so) picture, and even Amaya identified it correctly. So if I ever lose 10 more pounds my family will most certainly still recognize me.

I thought I should point out what I did for Jake this Valentine's Day, because he is not the only romantic one in the family.

1. I stayed in the bedroom and left Amaya and he alone in the early morning so they could spend some quality time together.

2. I blogged about my students and edited pictures so he could plan and get ready for a barbecue at Kahana.

3. I made some french toast for myself and allowed him to have a couple of pieces.

4. I surfed at Kahana so he could make hamburgers and keep Amaya warm as it was extremely windy.

5. I allowed him to take me to a movie I wanted to see, and then run and get the car to pick me up so we would not be late for our dinner reservation.

6. I bought myself a dress just for the occasion, and we all know a good look at me is romance at its finest.

7. I graciously let him eat half of his own dessert and a few bites of mine.

8. I let him drive, so he would feel like a man.

9. I gave him an ipod shuffle so he wouldn't have to use mine anymore.

Isn't Jake such a lucky guy?

Bad Mood Medicine

1. Beat the level you've hated with the depths of your soul.

2. Weigh yourself to find you've lost 1/2 a pound.

3. Wear your favorite shirt

4. Watch the new FOTC video

Bad Moods are so Difficult to Keep Up

I was woken up by a very well meaning person who was preparing the room for her sweet, elderly mother who is coming to visit today. Why does she think she needs to get the room ready? I mean, just because everyone's been in a big hurry to get the room redone after the flooding disaster and having to deal with the ripped up floor and mounds of stuff? I got up and decided to exercise, so I promptly got out my Nintendo DS to beat a level I could not get past 2 days ago, despite 9,000 tries, and sat on the chair. After 5,000 more tries I unclenched my furious fingers and put it down for later. Jake had to go to help the young women hike so I had to stay home and watch Amaya, and I was annoyed about it even though he was doing service, and I was going to be able to actually have some time with Amaya.
Amaya was hungry, so kept opening the fridge, and I was mad at her about that so she went in time out about 20 times. I mean, 2 year olds should know by now that the only thing I have in the fridge that she even cares about eating is cheese.
While Amaya ate 2 pieces of string cheese I checked my blogs and let her make a mess of the house. Then I became annoyed that she was making a mess and even more annoyed that she refused to help me clean it up. Hence 10 more time outs.
Then I decided to exercise again, and Amaya insisted on also putting on exercise clothes, but got mad at me when I put in P90x in the DVD player instead of Toy Story 2, and I was doing the warm up when Jake walked in.
I started to tell him how I was having such a bad day, especially the part about how I was concerned about my now sore and metallic tasting (for the last 2 days) mouth and spent hours on the internet looking up my symptoms only to find out that I either have cancer or heart failure or possibly cold sores, all of which are depressing, and he started to close the door on my ranting because he had been holding his pee for an hour already. The NERVE.
I turned off P90x and said I was going to run to Cackle Fresh for vegetables and eggs. Right after I walked out the door I walked back in to get the car key, because I'm not walking back with a bunch of eggs in my hands.
But Cackle Fresh is CLOSED, for some "emergency", or so it says on the sign.
So I come back home and tell Jake I'm going to exercise, and I look around for my yoga mat. I can't find it, and Jake says it's on the porch. He even goes to get it for me.
I'm going to eat lunch, I say. I make myself a sandwich, despite my no carb resolution for today (the 2nd of the day), and cut open the very squishy avocado. But it's a farce! Only the skin is squishy. The avocado itself is as hard as a rock. I try to eat it anyway, and I bite into egg tasting rubber on my second bite.
Then one of my nursery workers calls to tell me that she can't do the lesson tomorrow, and I can't do the lesson because I'm also primary pianist as of last week, but I'm supposed to take care of it because her son is sick. Sheesh.
I sat down prepared to beat that level and I beat the level, but die on the next, so I have to restart at the previous level. I beat my chest like Donkey Kong. I looked up techniques on how to beat the level and could not figure out why the results wouldn't show up, even though I searched through every result it pulled up, and after 20 minutes realized I was writing "Donkey King vs. Mariko" instead of "Donkey Kong vs. Mario."
I find it insulting to be a 'k" away from a squat Italian painter with a bad moustache. Plus, he has the worst jumping skills.
I finally start reading essays, since I have 50 left in my stack, and I throw them down after the first one and say, "Why do these essays SUCK?!" I mean, describe and define are totally different types of essays!
Sometimes, I just hate myself for hating everything, but I still can't help it.
And people who are not in bad moods always say, "Go exercise" or "Must be PMS" or they try to be nice to me or tell me to snap out of it.
Those people should be shot.

Dislearning

I am starting to believe that Amaya secretly knows how to read. I'm not sure when she practices this, but there's been some evidence that is hard to ignore.

As a teacher, this is hard for me to swallow, because she totally refuses to even try if I start suggesting colors, letters, or numbers. She actually puts her little hand over my mouth, or closes the book we're looking at. I am, in fact, starting to brace myself for the idea that I might have the kind of kid that teachers call home about. The one that doesn't like school. If I point to a letter and say, "What is that?" She will say, "THAT!" and then walk away. The only letter I have previously gotten her to recognize correctly was the letter 'O', and its not a consistent recognition.

A few weeks ago she was playing with a deck of cards (something we never let her do, because it's a mess, but I let her because we were staying at the Graham's house and toys were limited to the 2 we brought over, and the assortment of makeup I found her in on more than one occasion), and she brought me a card and said, "Here's the joker."
Yes, it was the joker. I was kind of shocked. I said, "Can you bring me the King?"
And she did.
Then I said, "Bring me the Queen."
She brought me the Jack, but I think this was to throw me off. And, NO, they were not in order in the deck.

Often Jake and I joke about this, because occasionally we'll be at the store or somewhere in public and she will suddenly name the box of cereal on the shelf, one we've never eaten, bought, or seen on TV. It's a bit eerie when it happens, actually.

Then today I was cutting her a piece of cake (her 2nd piece today, but of course I didn't know that) that had part of the words "Happy Birthday Bryan" written in cursive on the cake. She suddenly says, "There's an A!"
I literally looked at her in shock.
When I composed myself, realizing that there were lots of letters, and she could be talking about anything, and as far as I know she's at least heard that A is one of the letters of the alphabet, I asked her to point it out to me. And she was right.
I got a little excited, friends, and I tried to hide it because I knew she was going to just walk away in disgust any second now, but I really couldn't help pushing it a little.
I said, "Can you point to the P?" The cake was upside down of course, and in cursive, but she clearly pointed to a piece of cursive that looked like a P, even though it wasn't the actual P that was upside down. I said, "What about the H?" And there her little pointer finger went.
Before I could ask another, she pointed to the cross in the letter on the tail of Y that looked like an X, and she said, "And there's an X!"
I was totally dootzing in my pants.
Very excitedly I said, "Where's the S?" as I gestured to the name of the cake company on the box.
She looked at me very seriously and said, "Mommy, I don't want to do that," and proceeded to eat her cake.
I see some turbulent teenage years ahead of me. No doubt about it.

A Diet that Works

I'm launching my idea for my new book here, and you'll have to tell me what you think.

Now, most diets make crazy promises about losing weight. I have to tell you, I will make no such folly.

Here, I outline a diet that works. I absolutely 100% GUARANTEE that you will maintain or gain weight on this diet. No more fretting over pounds lost and dress fittings--- you will definitely be maintaining and/or gaining weight, and you will feel like you are doing work for it.

These are my basic rules for my diet, which is called "The Fortune Scale," because you will always be increasing your wealth of fat:

1. Tell people you are on a diet. It is best if you pick one that is popularly known, especially if that diet is very disciplined. For example, I like to say that I am on the South Beach diet.


2. Follow the South Beach diet for a time, but you realize that to maintain such discipline you would have to throw away all of your food and lock yourself in the closet for a month, and have a personal midget to bring your eggs to you every morning (it has to be a midget, because you would not dream of begging a midget to feel sorry for you, even if you realize that it is extremely short minded of you to think such a thing, but you do anyway because you are vertically challenged yourself and you assume that it is a problem for any such persons).


3. So, since you recognize that you must give yourself some exceptions, the first exception you make is that you are allowed to eat any food that is served at a birthday party. Especially because it is rude to make the guest of honor feel self conscious about the fattening foods served at such a party.


4. Another important exception is that you are allowed to eat any food served at a meeting. This is because food at a meeting is never served in real life, so this is a time to sample delicacies that you would never run into in an average day, like doughnuts and salt & vinegar potato chips.


5. The last very important exception is that you are allowed to eat any food when you have guests over. It is very rude not to serve dessert in such a situation, and even if they are over for dinner, it is rude to require them to follow your diet. Dessert must follow. Ask guests to come over as often as possible.


6. During this whole time, appear to be following the diet at meals where none of the exceptions apply, except when you are making dinner for your husband, who considers the diet to be a burden. If HE makes dinner, he of course is not required to follow your diet. Ask him to make dinner a lot.


7. If your husband or you make dinner (which you must do every night) you are also allowed to bring any leftovers from that dinner for lunch the next day, because you are a busy person who exercises and cooks for people, and you don't have time to make a salad with poached chicken breast for lunch.


8. This rule may seem counterintuitive, but I assure you it is not: EXERCISE. If you do not exercise, it is very possible that you will lose weight, even though you are eating everything in sight during guest dinners, birthday parties, and meetings, which somehow make up at least 75% of your eating during the week. If you exercise, especially if you exercise very hard with your P90x videos without fail every day, you will definitely, absolutely-posotutely, gain weight. This phenomenon is also 100% likely to occur even if you are not making any food exceptions and are following your said diet with fidelity and supposedly burning as many calories as you are taking in. In fact, I could throw out this whole diet and simply say, "Exercise" with the express purpose of burning calories, and you will positively gain weight.

You may wonder what the advantage to this program might be. A huge benefit to this diet is that you will feel like you are dieting, gain sympathy for your cause, and many people will tell you that you are completely perfect and don't need to lose weight.

And this, people, is all a diet is good for.