GAGS diet

Egg yolks are my nemesis.

More specifically, raw egg yolks are my nemesis.

On day 7, which was really my day 6, it was time to introduce "raw egg yolks gently stirred into soup right before serving".

I know how nutritious egg yolks are.  I get my eggs from a trusted local source where the hens are free range and happy.  I don't have a problem eating raw egg whites in meringues, or even better, drinking them in Pisco Sours.

But once I gently stirred my raw egg yolks into my soup right before serving, it was gag city.

I tried drinking the soup (gag)
I tried eating the soup with a spoon (gag)
I tried drinking the soup with a thick bubble tea straw (gag)

The way I was finally able to get it down was to tightly close my eyes, pinch my nose shut, and drink it through a straw while thinking hard about a chocolate milkshake.

It's totally psychological, because I really enjoyed this butternut squash soup a couple days ago and it really doesn't taste or look any different with raw egg yolks in it, but I KNOW they're in there and it bothers me.  Hopefully I'll get over it.

In other news though, I've been feeling GREAT yesterday and today.  I passed out before 9PM Tuesday night while reading online encouragement about die-off symptoms and cradling my nauseous stomach, then I woke up Wednesday morning at 6:30 feeling like a new person.  I happily attacked my broccoli meatball soup at breakfast, and walked both girls AND Maxx to school, which I've been really wanting to do for a long time.  I even summoned the strength to carry Charlotte all the way home when she ran out of steam as soon as we arrived at school.

Today I got to introduce....cod liver oil.  C'mon now!  After a week of the same food you get excited about reaching stage 2 and introducing new things.  Then you look and see that the new thing is a raw egg white or cod liver oil and your excitement dies pretty quick.  But tomorrow I start soaking some raw walnuts, the day after that I dehydrate them, and the day after THAT I get to eat them!  Can't wait.

I am incredibly surprised at how energetic I feel these past 2 days, even though I don't really get hungry very often (and I rarely eat when I'm not hungry because ew, most of the food I can eat is not appealing).  I feel like the Dragon Warrior in Kung Fu Panda, subsisting on nothing but dew and universe juice.  I did a TOUGH Bodypump class this morning, and when that was over I realized that I still had half an hour on Charlotte's childcare pass for the day so I hopped on the treadmill to train for my 5K.  "Running a mile doesn't take very long when you run FAST", I said to myself, so I cranked the treadmill up to a speed that felt fast to me, and went for it.  That speed was a 10:09 mile pace mind you, but still, fast for me.  At half a mile I was pouring sweat and ready to quit, but I was able to keep myself going for the full mile!  Then, dripping sweat and panting, I even foam-rolled and stretched afterward.  I felt like an exercise viking.

The highlight of my day, however, was watching Emily do her homework.  I'm pretty sure this is the absolute best homework experience I will ever have with her.  She was so excited I had to pull out the camera to document it.

She had to trace her name, then write it herself 5 times.  Every time she did it she got better, and she celebrated every little improvement.

By the end she understood the purpose of the solid and dashed lines and her name was looking pretty good!

I forsee quite a few screaming battles over homework in the future, but I genuinely enjoyed this assignment.  And Emily is still genuinely enjoying Kindergarten.  It makes me so happy that she's incredibly excited to tell me all about her day at pickup every afternoon.  I hope to keep this excitement about school around as long as possible!

The Last Day of Summer

Emily's Kindergarten has a "staggered opening", which means that 1/3 of the kids in her class went to school on Monday, 1/3 on Tuesday, 1/3 on Wednesday, and then all of them start going together every day after that.  Therefore, I got my daughter back for one last day of summer yesterday before turning her over to the county!  Continuing in my pattern of shameless child-indulgence, I asked her what she wanted to do with her last day of summer, and she said "Go to Pump it Up AND Chuck E. Cheese!".  I told her I'm not THAT indulgent, so we just went to Pump it Up this morning.

Charlotte had a bit of trouble with the bouncy horse

The girls had a blast, and you know what?  I had a fantastic time too.  The girls actually played together practically the whole time, and that made things #1 adorable and #2 so much easier for me.  Sure, I crawled through the inflatables with them enough to get the obligatory friction burns on my elbows and knees, but I also got ample time to just sit outside of a particular bouncy thing and enjoy the giggles and calls of "Come on Emmy!" and "Here Charlotte, I'll help you climb up" floating out from its depths.  

Sisters conquering the world together

Time for a rest

There was calm playing...

...heart-melting snuggling...

...and voluntary sharing.

I was so high on motherly affection after playtime was over that I decided to tempt fate and take the girls to a SIT DOWN RESTAURANT.  I have been meaning to take them to Lunchbox, but last week when we were nearby Emily was NOT listening to me so I yanked having lunch out as a punishment.  The girls were disappointed, so I figured I could take them yesterday instead, as a reward for excellent behavior.  But then I decided that as long as I was considering one Voltaggio restaurant, why not go to the one that was directly on our way home and has free parking instead?  So with trepidation, we walked in.

The provided crayons and coloring sheets were appreciated.

And despite my girls tiredness and a fairly long wait for their food to come out, they were excellent at remembering to use their "lady manners".

I started with the Gazpacho.  

All Emily wanted were duck fat fries, because we had mentioned them to her before as a slightly (very slightly) healthier kind of fry.

I convinced her to get some macaroni and cheese too.

Charlotte ordered the kids cheeseburger and didn't touch it.  The fries and fruit were hit hard though.

I had the CLT sandwich (cucumber, lettuce and tomato plus avocado and goddess dressing), and I meant to order it on wheat bread but forgot.  I just made sure to leave most of my bread behind when I ate it.

Since the girls aren't watching their weight, and since this restaurant uses local/grass fed/organic ingredients whenever possible, I didn't feel TOO guilty about the fact that they both basically had fries for lunch.

They sure didn't feel guilty.

And hopefully they never will feel guilty about food.  One of my biggest wishes for my girls is that they don't inherit their mama's eating issues!

Gartening

Whew boy!  I barely remember how to log into my blog these days.  However, today was far too momentous for me to allow it to go undocumented.

My firstborn, my amazing, sweet, clever, hilarious, CONFIDENT daughter went off to Kindergarten today.  She was nothing but excited, for which I am very thankful.  Emily's best friend, I am told, has been crying herself to sleep at night because she's worried about starting Kindergarten and as a parent that must be SO difficult to watch :-(

I started to feel kind of "pre-nostalgic" last night as I packed her lunch.  I didn't expect Kindergarten to feel much different (for me) than Preschool, but it definitely does.  As I packed her lunch I was very conscious of the fact that I would be doing this practically every night for the next 16 years.  Yes, that includes Charlotte and assumes that they'll still WANT me to pack their lunches when they're in high school (not likely), but it still felt like something big was starting now.

I did ok at drop off, though it still felt weird.  This is the longest stretch of time by a long shot that I've ever left her in the care of someone who isn't family.  I am happy that we were able to walk her into the cafeteria and make sure she found her teacher vs. having to just wave goodbye at the bus stop.  Plus this way Will was able to see what the kids who qualify for school-provided breakfasts were eating, and listening to Will rant about corndog-ed sausage and sugar cereal with strawberry milk distracted me on our way out.  I actually didn't cry!  I did just fine as we drove away, I did just fine through phone conversations with both the Grandmas, but I started to tear up in Zumba, if you can believe it.  The teacher asked if there were any Kindergarten mothers in the class, then came over and gave me a hug.  You know what happens when you're emotionally teetering and someone hugs you, right?  It was just a couple sniffles though, then I had to suck it up because what looks more ridiculous than a crying 31 year old American woman Salsa dancing?  The answer is: not much.

First day of school 2010

First day of school 2011

First day of school 2012

She needed a new GIRLY backpack this year.

She is so good about posing for endless pictures for her mommy

All she asks in return is that I snap some shots in poses of HER choosing too.

Take a picture of me like this, mommy

The jealous little sister who desperately wants to go to school too

Such a grown-up lady!

I'm a big girl too!

I won't force her to pose for a picture like this every year, but as long as she is willing, I'll take advantage!

Where we left her to start her elementary school career :*)

 Zumba distracted me for awhile, then I turned my attention to Charlotte and the doggies.  Yes, we have 2 dogs now!  There will be more on that later :-)  I let Charlotte choose what we did today, and being 2 she decided to do pretty much exactly what we had done on Sunday.  We took the dogs to the new dog park by our house, then had a picnic and played on the playground for a bit.

Naughty Maxx.  Thank goodness the lid was still on.

I packed Charlotte a lunch just like Emmy's, but she still ate most of my salad instead.

Hey...

I see you down there!

Going down the big slide by herself, a skill she just developed last week!

 Then we came home, I put her down for a nap, and I had an hour or two to myself in the house!  Hopefully I can use this new chunk of time to blog regularly again and get a head start on dinner.  I also had to clean this up:

No, it's not barf, it was the applesauce I made this weekend :-(  It fell out of the fridge as I was about to run out the door to Zumba and my useless dogs apparently don't like applesauce much so I had to clean it up myself.  Hmph.

Eventually it was time to go get Emily from school, and once I had figured out how to navigate pick-up (it's much easier for Kindergartners than for anyone else, luckily) we were reunited :-)   She immediately told me that her first day was AMAZING, and took me over to the playground to show me how she could go across the monkey bars by herself!  She also told me her favorite part of the day was recess, she was able to play with the little boy from across the street who is in a different class on the playground, and a girl in her class with long brown hair has a brother or cousin who is in jail and has a beard because he doesn't shave and his hair is long like a girl's hair.  

The thing I had been most worried about was the 4-hour stretch between the end of lunch and the end of the school day where Emily wouldn't be able to have any food.  I warned her teacher that she can be kind of nasty when she gets hungry, but at least for today she seems to have handled it ok.  I'm hoping that it will continue to be a non-issue, but if it does become a problem I'm hoping they'll let me send a medicinal snack (a cheese stick or something?) for her to get at the nurse's office to keep her blood sugar steady.

And what raises your blood sugar faster than a frosting-smothered cupcake?  Emily has been eyeing the specialty cupcakes at Wegmans every time we go by, and I have told her that we would get one someday for a special occasion.  I decided today was the day, and I surprised her by taking her to get one so we could celebrate a great first day of school.  They were like kids in a cupcake shop.

So many choices

Emily chose a princess cupcake

Eating cupcakes in the café while watching SuperWhy

Emily's cupcake was kinda random, but since it actually LOOKED like it was designed by a 5 year old girl I wasn't surprised she was drawn to that particular one.

Let's see, what else do we have laying around that we can stick on top of this thing...

Charlotte's made me laugh, because it was a version of this cupcake that I've seen all over the internet lately. The professional bakers at Wegmans did a fine job decorating it, but by the time Charlotte had carried it to the table it was not very photogenic anymore.

These cupcakes go against everything I believe in healthy eating-wise of course, and I would probably grumble if someone brought them in to feed my kid at school, but sometimes you have to throw the rules out the window.

I hope every day of her school career is as good for Emily as this one was.

The rest of the weekend

After we finished the party at Pump it Up, we took the party home with us.  We invited Emily's grandparents, aunts and uncles home so they could celebrate with her in a more relaxed environment.  

Many conversations were had

Shirts matched

Much wine was consumed

Happy Birthday was sung again

More presents were opened

Sisters were jealous

New uses were found for Emily's presents

Can I just mention here that we witnessed an incredible My Little Pony miracle on Saturday?  As people asked me what Emily wanted for her birthday, I told most of them "My Little Pony stuff".  After telling the 8th person, I started to think that maybe I had better think of something else to avoid duplicate presents.  However she didn't get a single duplicate pony, and she got EXACTLY the ponies she needed to complete her collection.  I found that pretty astounding.

I know that is probably only interesting to me, but who cares, I have lots of new ponies to play with now :-)

The next day we got up bright and early and headed up to the farm for a slightly soggy Dam Day.

We found some rocks that hadn't been thrown into the creek yet

Eating melon as fast as Aunt Margaret could cut it

Emily spent almost all of her down time using her new Leapfrog Tag reader...I love this thing too and I am beyond excited that SHE'S excited about the prospect of learning to read by herself.

Then Emily and I had to leave early so we could get back to Frederick for Emily's dance pictures.

Incidentally, Emily LOVED wearing makeup, and keeps talking about how she can't wait to wear it when she's older.  Oy.

We spent the rest of Sunday making and decorating cupcakes for Emily to take to school the next day.  She had been envisioning and discussing these cupcakes for months, so they had to be perfect.  

She seemed happy enough with them, although I had a tough time getting the frosting thick enough once I had added the blueberry purée.


Monday was Emily's ACTUAL birthday, so I wanted to make sure to do some fun things she wanted to do.  We went to Toys R Us to get her birthday balloon and crown and to TRY to find some My Little Pony train cars, but they didn't have any :-(  We left with slime and a new Mommy Unicorn instead (that makes 3 now).

She also wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese, so we stopped by for a bit (i.e. as long as I could stand) before dinner.

Charlotte just kept pumping tokens into this thing one after the other

Dinner was Common Market sushi, followed by ice cream sundaes at Emily's request, and more presents.

Birthday girl

Charlotte was pretty chill about the whole thing

Then, after 3 days of partying, we officially declared Emily a 5 year old and collapsed on the couch for a bit.