Let's do this again.

Two years ago I started documenting a weight loss journey on this 'ol blog. I was 159 pounds and had just had a baby a couple months earlier and could be forgiven for carrying an few (or 35) extra pounds.

So I joined Weight Watchers, started counting my calories, and lost a grand total of 31 pounds. Success! I was SO CLOSE to my goal of 125 pounds and I promptly declared myself cured of the fat. And went straight back to the horrible eating habits that got me into trouble in the first place.

Which brings me to today and my current fat-ass weight of 153 pounds. Almost smack dab right back at where I was before. EXCEPT last time I had just had a baby 3 months earlier. I do not have that excuse this time.

I got lazy, I NEVER got into the regular habit of working out, and then when I stopped to think about how far I had let myself go I got depressed and would eat more crap. Vicious cycle.

So new plan. Back to counting calories, which I KNOW to be effective. But besides just that, I'm also taking up running. Indoors for now since HAVE YOU SEEN IT OUT THERE? Once the white crap melts, it'll be outdoors.

The ultimate goal with this running is to enter a 5K. I'm going to get halfway through my program and then book myself into one. No excuses.

I have a long-term goal but it's EXTREMELY unrealistic at this point so I think I'll keep it to myself. Suffice it to say, it's over a year away and totally bad-ass. It's so beyond my scope of even imagining that most people would giggle to themselves if I told them.

I'll do it though.

Boo-hoo.

These days I feel like a salmon swimming upriver. I don't know what it is about the age of 2 that makes parents feel absolutely unprepared to deal with toddlers, but I do know it's a common theme.

At least I hope so. Maybe everyone else has it together and I'm the only one that has no grip on reality?

Because my youngest kids are effing animals. Although once I think about it, when Nicky went through this destructive phase, Josh was too young to mimic. Now that Josh is there, it's like Nicky is reverting.

The result is I want to hurl myself off the High Level Bridge.

This past week has been especially trying. They're fighting, with fists. They yell at each other. Josh gives Nicky shit every 5 minutes. They tattle on each other constantly. They are breaking things and wrecking things at record speeds.

Nicky has taken to acting like a frill-necked lizard. If you don't know what that is, google image it because I can't for the life of me figure out how to link properly. But, when he feels threatened by Josh he'll hiss at him and you can just picture, if he had a frill it would be WAY up there scaring Josh off.

And it's effective, 95% of the time Josh runs away. It's also the only levity in a really annoying situation.

Because I swear, I discipline. I don't let them get away with awful behavior. They go for time outs, they get spankings, they get toys taken away. They get yelled at, talked to nicely, bargained with. They're loved, they're not ignored, I'm engaged with them. I'm definitely not a perfect parent but I care about how they turn out.

And still. I feel like I'm raising future hood rats.

So that's why I feel like a salmon. I know eventually I'll be successful but damn is it hard on the way there. And I know it's not even the hardest part yet because I'm going through THAT with the oldest one. Although one could say that it's not necessarily harder, it's just a different kind of hard.

I meant to turn out a light-hearted, jokey post. Instead I spiraled down into mommy-whine. Honestly though, lately I've been aching to have the same stomp-your-feet, bawl-your-eyes-out, red-faced tantrums they've been having. But someone has to act like the adult.

It's about me this time!

How about another round of 'Random Things'. But this time about me!

-My energy level has tanked. Like, I could fall asleep right now as I type and my mouth is in a permanent yawn. There are probably many different reasons for this but I'm betting the biggest one is that I find it impossible to fall asleep before midnight every night.

-I have finally, and for the last time ever, quit smoking. It only took almost 17 years after I first started to be able to say it and mean it. And over the last week I've been tested, let me tell you. Probably the worst. time. ever. to quit but we can't predict what life throws at us.

-I'm going back and forth between saving up to buy a treadmill and trying to find a gym buddy and joining Spa Lady. The treadmill would probably be more cost effective but the gym! They have Zumba classes! That I'd probably never attend but still!

(This is where Jeff pipes in and reminds me that a) where the fuck would we put a treadmill? and b) I couldn't find the time to go to the gym before so what's changed? And I would say: Darling, I let you babble on about all your crap. Let me do the same.)

(But I am serious about wanting to do one of those 2 things. I've got it all planned out.)

-I'm in the process of growing out my hair. I'm an idiot and assumed that all I'd have to do is not go to my hair stylist. A word of warning to anyone trying to grow out a pixie cut, you still need to have your hair looked after or else it'll look like a big 'ol poofball. That, or you'll look like a sheepdog with all that damn hair in your eyes. It's not very attractive. Luckily I have an appointment this evening and I can go back to being stunning. Phew.

-One more thing, and you knew I wouldn't be able to not mention my kids right? This whole no-energy thing is making for one not very fun house right now. Because in addition to me being exhausted, the kids are no longer napping which means they are extra lovable and charming come about 2:30 in the afternoon. It makes it hard to keep tempers even and the yelling to a minimum. And that goes for EVERYONE in the house. We're all bitchy lately. I'm really wishing for one of those 'Easy' buttons about now.

On that note, I've got one child (I'll give you one guess who) whining and pointing at the fridge for some YOOOOGURRRRT. I've been told.

Hello again.

I've been in a blog rut lately. Can't think of anything interesting enough to write about so I've been silent for...a couple weeks? A month?

So how about some random crap? Yay!

-Nicky is majorly whiny lately. Like, make your brain bleed whiny. Apparently I've commented on this enough that when I give him the warning "Nicholas..." he responds with "I'm making your brain bleed?". Huh.

-Josh has a soundtrack to his life lately. It goes something like this: "Boom-boom, cha. Boom-boom, cha". All day, as he's playing with his cars, as he's eating his breakfast, as he's watching tv. We've all found ourselves making these sounds under our breath, it's quite catchy.

-After a serious talk with my eldest about respect, in which I told him he needed to look up the definition if he couldn't figure it out, life has been very attitude-free for the past 5ish days. I'm savoring it, who knows when it'll end? Also, he's going to be 13 in exactly 2 months. Thir-effing-teen. Where did my life go?

-Oh, and about Liam too. And this makes me roll my eyes and in some sneaky way be proud too (because he obviously got his looks from me). Amongst his friends, according to him, he's got the best hair. The guys are all trying to grow theirs out to look like his, and the girls think it's "so sexy". There's something that doesn't feel...right....about 12 year old girls thinking my kids hair is 'sexy, but unfortunately I can't control what comes out of other peoples mouths so I'm just going with it.

Oh look! A whole blog post! Who knew my kids were so damn interesting?

Toddler reality.

I've noticed a widespread derision of the childrens show Caillou among most of the parents I know. I've just gotta say, I don't really understand it.

It's realistic guys. It's a toddlers very own reality show. It's so true to life that when it's playing in my house I can't even distinguish between my own kids and fake cartoon ones.

The only thing that's not realistic about Caillou are the parents. Because I sure as shit am not that patient when my kids turn on the whine. No, no no no. No.

My kids spend a lot of time in time out. I spend a lot of time saying the following phrases:

"Mommy doesn't listen to whining. You need to use your real voice."

"Nicky, use your real voice or you can go to time out."

"Josh, use your real voice (or stop hitting your brother/don't say 'stupid'/don't bite your dad) or you can go to time out."

"THAT'S ENOUGH, TIME OUT NOW."

Lately the only thing that works is the threat of Chippy telling Santa that they're being bad. And that only works on Nicky, not Josh.

-->Tangent. My kids are uber unoriginal. When we got our Elf On The Shelf, Nicky promptly named him Elf. After some coaxing to come up with something more...well, interesting, he came up with Chippy. Because that's the name of the elf from the cartoon so DUH of course that's his name. Liam was the same way. Years ago when we got a cat he was named-wait for it...Cat. We eventually settled on Jojo-Cat. Yawn.

Anyway, point is I yell a lot. And Caillou's parents don't. So that part doesn't ring true to me. But the whiny, annoying, snot-nosed kid part? I can relate.

Livin the dream, I tell ya.

The reason I'll always be chubby.

My love affair with chips has spanned decades. They are my weakness. It's pathetic, really.

You know how when you're eating a bag of chips and somebody asks for one right? And how you grab a chip and give it to that person. Right? Everyone doles out their chips don't they? No? Well I guess I can admit I'm a bit territorial about them. It always made me cringe when people would plunge their hands into my chip bag and come up with a big handful.

This behavior got me teased mercilessly by my friends in high school. I took it like a champ though.

Nowadays, my kids have all inherited my love of savory snacks. And I still have to battle the urge to smack their hands away when they're trying to 'share'. In reality, they don't get to eat chips very often. And that's only because I wait till they're out of the room, quickly fill a bowl with some chips, and then put the bowl in the sink so they can't see it and stand at the counter like I'm really busy cleaning and inhale them. Fools them every time.

Except I can't breathe near them till after I've brushed my teeth. They can smell them on my breath. In fact, Josh can detect the smell from about 4 feet away. And then it's all 'cheeps, cheeps, cheeeeeps mummy'.

Liam is old enough to buy his own chips now. And like I was in junior high, he doesn't like to share either. Keeps an eagle eye on me when I grab some from his bag. Gives me the stink eye when he thinks I've taken too many. Hell, half the time he refuses to share.

And as much as I understand, I still want to punch him in the face for being so greedy.

I know.

Don't even get me started on flavors and dips. Because this post could go on forever. Suffice it to say, I will eat any, and I mean ANY, flavor of chips. And I would kiss the feet of anybody who could find me some Helluva Good Buttermilk Ranch dip.

Other people get this obsessive about snacks right? I cannot be alone.

Tubthumping

It happened as I was stripping the bed after an unfortunate naptime accident. And it was so appropriate that I was unsure of whether to laugh or sit down and cry. I settled for rolling my eyes, humming along, and getting down to business.

Yep, that 90's tune that meant SO MUCH MORE 15ish years ago has now become my life's theme song.

Between the rare-but-still-happening-occasionally accidents with Nicky and Josh's insistence on 'unnerware' (though to date he has peed in the potty 4 times) I have been a non-stop pee cleaning machine. Our spot cleaner has never been used on such a continuous basis before and I don't even bother emptying the cleaning solution anymore. I'll just be refilling it within 12-24 hours.

My kids smell like pee, my house smells like pee, I'm pretty sure I smell like pee. This is so much fun!

Pissing the night away...