Ya:”Mom, can I pretend I’m a doctor? How do you feel?
Mom: “My tummy hurts.”
Ya:”Just drink medicine. Medicine and water.”

***
Ya: “If I don’t drink no medicine, then I won’t be feeling no better. Mom, please.”

***
Ya: “Can you make me food?”
Me: “The kitchen is closed.”
Ya: “There is no kitchen door.”

***
Ya, while watching my NY GIANTS beat the 49rs in football: “What color is redskins?”
Me:”red and yellow. They’re not playing. That’s Rob’s team, 49rs. We like giants. Say, ‘ go giants.”
Ya:”I like the star. Can I have them?”
Me: “traitor.”

***
During a discussion about why he cannot eat my left over English muffin sandwich:
Me: “You eat breakfast at School.”
Ya: did you see me eat? No. I didn’t eat nothing.”

***
Ya: “Mom are you ever going to get downstairs and get me food.”
||ten seconds later||
“Are you going to get yourself downstairs? Cause I’m hungry. I ate a muffin. I ate fruit. Potatoes. Potatoe salad and…”
Me: “Why are you hungry?”
Ya: “Because I never ate a lot of stuff at my school. I ate a muffin, I ate fruit, I ate corn. And nothing else. Told you that. That’s why I’m still hungry. Are you just going to get yourselves downstairs now?”

* inspired by Melissa Camara Wilkin’s “Six Word Fridays”

BlogHer Book Club presents:

Why Women Need Fat: How “Healthy” Food Makes Us Gain Excess Weight and the Surprising Solution to Losing It Forever
William D. Lassek, M.D. and Steven J.C. Gaulin, PH.D.
Hudson Street Press, 2012

No man? Blame it on the belly fat.
Difficult birth of children? Blame it on the belly fat.
Poor health? Blame it on the belly fat.

At least that’s what a quick read of several of the chapters in Why Women Need Fat would lead me to believe. Looking closer at the well-organized discussion of BMI and women’s shapes, however, leads me away from these quick (and warrying) conclusions.

Like most busy professionals, I didn’t have endless hours to devour every chapter of this book. So I skipped around – drawn to intriguing chapter titles and remaining for a closer read because of the content. I started, then, in Chapter Four: The Mystery of the Tiny Waist. I don’t have – nor have I ever had – a waist that would be called tiny. Brick house? Yeah, unless you’re looking for that 24 in the middle. I’m more like “Sistah Big Bones,” the so-called pudgy gal with the barrel torso. It should come as no surprise as to why I started with a chapter about something I’ve never been blessed with.

I’d always believed that – as it has been said in many a passing conversation – that weight was indicative of wealth. You know thin people don’t eat, right? Well, it has to be because they can’t afford food. Isn’t that what they say is the assumption in many cultures? A woman with some girth is ready to bare your legacy and is a showcase of your ability to provide.

But authors William D. Lassek, M.D. and Steven J.C. Gaulin, PH.D. debunk this myth quickly. They provide conclusions from a study of college men who’ve been asked to rate women’s attractiveness. The women shown are all collegiates and have blurred faces and wear nude bra and panties. The only thing being evaluated is their shapes. The results? Well, after evaluating the tracking pictures of each participating males’ eye movement (which primarily lingered on the waist just before a rating was chosen), it was determined that men are attracted to proportionately smaller waist-to-hip body types. [In a later clarification, the authors note it is "a small waist combined with quite a bit of fat in the hips, buttocks, and thighs" that attracts the visually-selective man.]

The authors add ratings of Playboy Playmates and cartoon women to these research experiments, concluding that though it “made no evolutionary sense,” the smaller the waist appears to be, the more attractive a woman is. And these itty bitty waists typically mean a lower BMI. I found it intriguing that, “Women with BMIs well below 20 – like Playmates, the women men prefer in Tovee’s studies, and the students with the smallest waists – tend to be less healthy, less fertile, and less able to conceive children.” So though humans are supposed to be physiologically wired to be attracted to healthier mates, they’re not?

I read on, hooked. In the next few sub chapters, the authors discuss the health-related cause of bigger waists – less Omega 3 DHA (needed for a baby’s brain development) and more Omega 6. So my bigger-than-it-should-be belly signals I’ll birth a less intelligent baby. It also suggests a riskier birth experience, the possibility that I’ve been pregnant before and have “used up some of [my] brain-building supplies” stock-piled in my pudgy pubescence. Oh, and if I appear as though I’ve had one or more kids before evaluating-man spots me for this analysis, chances are that I’m no youngster. Hold up, ” gaining weight after having [the] first baby is beneficial for any other babies that follow,” right? My expanding girth, then, is protecting the health of his future offspring (that’s my story – I’m sticking to it.)!

Now, obviously I’m skipping a good bit of information that Drs. Lassek and Gaulin have compiled. But if I didn’t, I’d just be rehashing the book, which at this point I’d decided was worthy of a thorough read through.

I’m overweight and diets aren’t working because, in part, the poultry and livestock I consume is stuffed with corn instead of the grains and grasses they’d once been raised on. Corn, the authors report, is replete with Omega 6 (the bad one) and I have to eat more meats to acquire the needed Omega 3 my body craves. So that ‘lean meat’ I thought I was preparing? It’s making me anything but.

Oh, and there’s something about leptin, too. Leptin is part of the “fat gene” discovery. It tells my (confused) body how much fat I’ve got on reserve – and I swear it’s calculations are wrong. Why else would this body of mine be holding onto every fat particle it encounters?

But wait… is it hopeless?

The simple answer is no. Drs. Lassek and Gaulin say I can reduce my Omega 6 abundance by boiling, roasting, steaming, stewing, broiling, or grilling my foods. And when I crave fried? Stir fry or braise (huh?) my food in “canola or olive oil or in butter.” Oh, and fish is good, very good. Too bad I do not “do” seafood and refuse to chug fish oil (which is suggested).

Now, I am also told that my height – four feet and ten inches of pure me – is not a good thing in a small package. (Pout.) Basically, my compact frame didn’t make room for essentials like kidneys, liver, spleen, or intestines like a tall woman’s body does. I was destined, you see, to be a little (bite your tongue!)on the thicker side.

The doctors, of course, counter my conclusions with charts for figuring out my natural (ideal) body weight, my body type and body widths, and my body fat. So, I can figure out my ideals and then try to get there while realizing, as the last chapter title states, “it’s not your fault if you’re heavy, but you don’t have to be this heavy.”

So it would seem that I have a little work to do. With the appendix of food facts and nutrition information, and a meaty chapter on restoring my newly-calculated natural body weight, I just might have the tools to lose the hefty, hefty uncinched sack that should be my waist.

Disclosure:
This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club. As always, the views and opinions expressed herein remain my own. I wouldn’t write it any other way.

And so, when my fiancee and I began a friendly game of “Words with Friends” (Zenga’s version of online Scrabble), it began as a, well, a friendly game. We’d play while on breaks at work. We’d play sitting side by side on my parent’s couch (facing our phone screens away from each other under our “no peeking policy”). Fast forward about 50 days, and our amicable competition has become a cut throat past time.

As the English teacher with a penchant for and affinity to unusual words, I’d just expected to wipe out my competition. I mean, I have a word wall in my classroom of interesting words I find in my readings (making the list are words like perclempt, cacophony, erstwhile, and clairvoyance). How can I not kick butt in a game about forming words?

I tell you, I was on a role. Game after game I was winning (I even made a 150 point come from behind victory and clenched the win by two points). I was pulling out words I’ve not heard or used for years. I’d seen him play, trying out a letter here or there, rearranging at arbitrary random until the game was “sending” his word. He’d gotten me with a few good ones – - words I would not have believed existed (qi, quop, et, jape, yock, zu). But he didn’t know the secret. You have to be conscious of the TL (triple letter), DL (double letter), DW (double word), and TW (triple word) squares.

I told him. He listened. And then, I lost.

Imagine the devistation. I considered the initial win a fluke, meerly a lucky handout of letters (I was denied consonants, for heaven’s sake!).

And then, I lost. Again.

Half dozen losses later, I decided I’d play him on his own game. Beat him in something he loved. We made a simple wager. I picked up an XBox 360 controller and selected a comic character to battle against his Mortal Combat choice.

I mashed those darn buttons. I twirled the little joystick with my thumb. I mashed more buttons. I moved the controller for extra oomph on my button pushing frenzy.

I lost. Badly.

Every once in a while, my frantic and obscure button punching resulted in more than just sore thumbs – a special combination or a glowing figure with what seemed like temporarily better talent. But for the most part, I was just depressing buttons and my morale while my defenseless character was beaten to a pulp.

It started out best out of five, but I lost three matches (six deaths!) so quickly, that he revised that to best of ten. And suddenly, with a new character (because, you know, it was the character and not my playing that sucked), I won. And then I won again and secured a match.

On a sudden streak of success, I picked another character. I mashed those darn buttons. I twirled the little joystick with my thumb. I mashed more buttons. I moved the controller for extra oomph on my button pushing frenzy. I won.

But then I realized that he wasn’t really moving his fingers on his controller. Instead, his thumbs half rested on the buttons while he pretended to be shocked at my sudden burst of playing genius. He moved his controller slightly for legitimacy (he couldn’t very well set it down without me noticing he was letting me win, could he?). It was clear, though, that he’d allowed me the win.

Hmmm… so was he giving me the wins in “Words with Friends?” Could I have found my intellectual match in this guy? And if I did, can I handle these occassional knocks to my pride?

*** He insists he did not and has never “let” me win… I’m inclined to believe this a sweet attempt at making me feel better.

For the inquisitive minds
qi (aka chi) is life force or energy in Taoism
quop (usually spelled quob or quab) is to throb or quivered
et is a simple past tense way to say eat (as in “Mommy I done et it already”)
jape means to mock or jest
yock, like yack, is to laugh loudly or obnoxiously
zu is an Italian instrumental trio from Rome usually consisting of saxaphone, bass and drums

Who’d have thought there was so much to consider? And the bulk of the considerations stem from my “dreams of the big day” versus what is “expected” by everyone else.

Once, knowledge of lustful infidelity crushed – -
child of twelve couldn’t handle Truth.
He chose pursuits not his own,
and tore to shreds marriage vows.
She was created in these passions
(an innocent born of what’s not).
Selfish, stubborn, and loyal I declined
to acknowledge what he laid claim.
At her breast, I buried myself;
opened her old wounds and hurt.
She, the betrayed, allowed me comfort – -
as only Mother could, head high.
He no longer stood above me,
his pedestal crumbled with my discovery.
Foolishly, I had expected his perfection.
His word was bond – became law.
My father, merely human, was humbled.

Years passed and she grew apart:
my sister unknown in childhood’s choice.
Our children, cousins and strangers alike.
The withered tree of family struggling.
But now adults with our own
vows spoken before God and loves,
attempt to understand what once was.

The aged testaments shared by lovers
without regard for right become guide.
Burning the evidence cannot erase it.
Instead, I offer these romantic tokens
as proof she’s love’s own creation.
Perhaps he was conflicted back then?
We wont condone, but will forgive.
(Mother taught me that with strength.)

Looking to future instead of past,
we seek to fertilize and grow.
Restoring health to long ailing limbs
and accepting one another as part.

*inspired by “looking forward” from Six Word Fridays ; shared with Write on Edge.

I wonder if he’s dreaming about how mommy cannot keep a commitment on one of these projects no matter how cool or “her” it is?

I know that I’m dreaming about a lot of things… especially about the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad things that could happen for my wedding. (Yikes, nightmares.) Like the one about the invitations:

I spend the better part of an evening in front of my computer testing out fonts from “Da Font,” toying with colors, and arranging text on PhotoShop. I’d think it was perfect, save as final, and then find a flaw. And after I’d arranged every detail the way I wanted, analyzed it half a dozen times, and flattened the image, I saved it as a TIFF and sent it to my fiancee for approval. His name was sitting atop a dark portion of the texture I used and wasn’t bright enough. So I went to the PhotoShop file fixed it, flattened the image, and saved it as a new TIFF (“final, final”). By the time I got to “this is really the final,” I’d exhausted my patience with the design. And I still had to design the back!

I sent the file to Moo for printing (their double sided, full color postcard option looked fabulous).

Then I went to sleep for a few rest-little hours.

In my dream, the invites arrived. I went to the stationary store to pick them up, and the associate located a small wallet-size photo box with my name on it. My eyes grew wide as I sized up the too-small box. She happily opened the box and I gasped as I saw my beautiful invitations – sized 5×7 on my computer – micro sized on a 2.5 x 3 business card. The text was so small, it was illegible without aid. As I began to shake my head, the associate said: “Is something wrong? You approved the proof. If they’re not to your liking there is a press reset fee of $2000.”

I woke up in a panic.

The invites have since arrived, and though smaller than my assumed 5×7 size, they are beautiful. Why I figured a post card was so large, I’ll never know. But now my fear is that my nightmares and dreams have a little too much truth in them. So what of the countless other scary musings of my dreaming mind?

And then something happened. The littles were nodding off on the short three miles drive from mom’n'dad’s to home. I made a mental note of this. I’m amazed that car rides confine a child enough to pacify their “if I stop moving, I’ll succumb to sleep” antics and provide much needed parental relief.

Inside our house, we quickly jumped into nighties and took inventory of our celebration goodies. Clackers? Yep, they work. Whirly-whistles? One dud, seven working screamers ready to go. Mardi Gras masks? A little odd, I know, but oh so cool. Any sense of anonymity encourages silliness and inhibitions.

But as the eldest watched the sun set and the darkness overtake the skies, she asked softly, “Mom, can you wake me up when it’s time?” What? I knew we’d be watching the clocks, but could my child – who prolongs night time rituals for hours to avoid sleeping at a reasonable time – konk out even before bedtime?

Nah!

Happy New Year!!!

shared with Sweet Shot Tuesday