The Pajama Squid

This isn’t going to be easy to say, this isn’t going to be easy to admit but I am a statistic. Since marriage I have gained 10 pounds. I know it is what everyone says, I mean they practically say it the day of, “congratulations and now your thighs will become one.”

I just didn’t think it would happen to me, I thought I could handle it. But after last night and the way I pushed past my “full” point like a Spartan and kept eating all that delicious Indian food, I realized it was time to do something about this. It was time to start blaming.

I blame two certain men in my life, my husband, Andrew and my brother, David. We’ll get to Andrew in a little bit, but lets start with David. Yes, the older brother by three years and the cause for my eating issues.

You can always tell a girl that has grown up with a brother. She doesn’t order salad on a date unless it is guaranteed to be large enough to fill a stockpot and half of it is covered in grumbled cheese.

She doesn’t share food, and never encourages the “splitting” of something. If you do end up splitting something you’ll only regret it because with each bite she will scoot the plate closer and closer until it is too far for you to reach. All this because she grew up with a brother, a brother possibly like my own.

While growing up with David, he was always one step ahead of me when it came to food, always lurking in my shadow waiting to eat something I had been planning on eating.

On the dinner table I would close my eyes to pray with the family before eating, and open them to find half eaten croissants on my plate and most of my mashed potatoes missing.

My dad started to buy me my own secret cereal boxes, so that I would finally get to try the cereal my brother would always finish first, enviably leaving me with grape-nuts and a vomiting reflex.

I would hide the cereal boxes under my bed, and when I would go to get them, there would be nothing left, but empty boxes and a breeze at my face alerting me David had been there.

It was like this with all food, and he was cruel about it too. He used to leave the wrappers of candy (he had ransacked my room to find) under my pillows, adding salt to my already deep and hungry wounds.

Because of the torture I grew up dealing with from my older brother in regards to food (and many, many other things) I have become a ninja when it comes to food, eating it as quickly as I can and as much as I can, fearful it might not be there or half eaten if I don’t.

I thought I had left all this behind when I married my husband but alas now I am dealing with a whole other kind of issue in regards to males and their food habits. Andrew is always hungry, no matter when or how much we just had to eat. An hour later he is hungry again.

I find myself trying to keep up, eating when I am not even hungry but because he is eating.

Saturday’s are the hardest. I make basically a 10 course lunch for us every Saturday, this huge lunch that leaves me full into the evening, but not Andrew, by 8 p.m. he is hungry again and calls from the kitchen, “I am going to make myself a piece of toast, do you want any.”

“No, I am fine.” I always reply, feeling really good about not giving in, until he comes in with his “piece of toast.”

I have realized “a piece of toast” means two completely different things to Andrew and I. I envision a piece of toast with butter on it. Andrew sees a fried egg sandwich dripping in butter and spicy cheese. He walks in and with a sly smile says, “do you want one?” My shoulders slump over and I reply a shameful, “yes.”

I mean even the other evening I announced that I was going on a diet, that I just wanted to get in better shape, and take off a few pounds.

Like an elf from Lord of the Rings, he came sweeping by whispering in my ear, “mint chocolate chip cookies” and I swear blew some magic dust in my face because by the end of the night I had made a batch from scratch of mint chocolate chip cookies and just before biting into that warm, soft in the middle crunching on the edges bliss of a cookie, it hit me, this was not what I wanted to do.

So this morning when my pants were a bit too tight, and even though I told myself they had just been washed, I knew it was time to get moving. Plus, being almost next to Bikram yoga, and seeing loads of people leave day in and day out with the sweat of success falling down their faces while I munch on candy is starting to get to me. I said, “starting.”

Even now, when I go back home I find crackers under my dad’s bed, and jars of jelly in his shoes in his closet. I always say to him, “dad we don’t even live at home anymore, why are you still hiding food?” With that, all the blood drains from his face and he begins to rock back and forth on his heels and mumbles “David” over and over again.

I have to admit that I do feel somewhat censored when it comes to my own blog. It being on my website is a reflection of my store, and I often wonder if being too open on it, or too myself might be kind of like bringing your personal life into your working life, which to me is never really that good of an idea.

But bits of me have also always been extremely private, but not in writing, I seem to be able to come a part in writing, and especially if it is evening, the breeze is that of a coming storm and the moon an October light.

I would never want someone to form an opinion of my store through a rant I might be having that day, or an insecurity that I might need to express in a humorous, maybe slightly immature way.

I have considered doing a blog elsewhere that just links to my store, but am still not even sure about that. Maybe I am too sensitive? Or not as brave as I thought I was?

It is so amazing to me how open the blogging world is, I find it brilliant, shocking at times, and just down right exhilarating that women are expressing themselves this way.

I love that women are communicating more to one another, reaching out and realizing that perfection is that of myths, and reality is so much better and not to mention more interesting.

Now if we could only get better at complimenting each other.

Here are some blogs I have been enjoying:

motherhooduncensored.net

mothergoosemouse.com

sweetney.com

dc_metro_moms

Happy Father’s Day to my Dad!

Today I think of you:

You are the reason I know every oldie song on the radio, remember all those times in the Falcon singing along to Roy Orbison, Sam Cooke, Four Tops, The Tokens, The Turtles, The Monkees, John Fogerty, and so many more. Doing our best Elvis impersonations and even though yours was a better version, I totally had you when it came to Patsy Cline.

You are the reason I wanted a baby blue 57 Chevy since I was 9 years old, and the reason I have attended more classic car shows then anyone I know, and the only reason that my first car was a 54 Plymouth.

You are the reason I finally understood story problems in my math book, because you would sit there with me every night going over them, again and again until I understood the nonsense that was being spoken to me.

You are the reason I got to sneak out of kindergarten and go sledding with you and the high school students you taught. My Dad being the principal had some advantages. How I loved going with you, how important I felt, how fearless I felt sledding down those hills with people twice my size and age, though I always gripped tightly to your legs.

You call me your African princess, and are so proud that I was born in Nairobi, Kenya, a place that you fell deeply in love with and that stays in your heart waiting. Some day I will take you back and we will have a house there, and a garden.

You are the best teacher I have ever known, I realize this even more now that I have been to so many classes and met so many different teachers, you are still the only one I think of and know this was your calling.

You are the reason I run my mouth too much when I am angry, and the reason I was sassy since I was three.

You are the reason I can’t keep still, how the wind tugs at my spirit whispering for it to keep traveling, to keep searching, to keep wanting out of this life, this journey, and this gift.

You are the reason I call you MacGyver, and the reason I never needed anyone else you could do it all. I mean you made a radio out of pop cans and tape.

You are the reason I learned to ride a bike in a day, the reason every time I see those army green sleeping bags we still own, I think of the days that we use to all put them on, and zip them to the top and pretend we were caterpillars.

You are the reason the only dog for me is a bulldog, that I have been riding motorcycle’s since I was a baby (only with you of course) and that I could be as open as I wanted to be.

You are the reason for Lake Michigan, for Aggie, for Skippy, and possibly the only reason I will get on a plane.

You are a principal, a missionary, a teacher, a nursing instructor, and an Extension Division Director.

You were in the Air Force and now the Reserves. I am so proud of you. You have created so many things, and have helped so many people.

You are the reason I am possibly a candy/anything frozen-holic, and the only reason I am the only person I know that puts Kool-Aid on their ice cream.

You are the reason I am basically a ninja, and the reason I had the best made from scratch costumes for Halloween, and the only reason David ever went trick or treating, every year he was a hobo, every year last minute, and every year still knocking me down to get to the door first. A sister never forgets.

I am completely and utterly a “Daddy’s girl” though we had our fights, and still do and though I broke your heart the day I got married, and even though you still call me and tell me, “I can still change my mind” I know you love Andrew deeply, but just miss this little girl around.

I know I haven’t changed that much.

You do so much, you care so much, and because of you and so many more reasons that this list doesn’t seem to do justice to, half of me is who I am, the other half belongs to mom, another reason why I love and admire you so, you picked the best wife and mom a child could ever need.

I love you like a heart.

Tonight I am thinking a lot about love.

I knew a part of me loved my husband when I got in his car and he turned on the heat and rolled down the windows. My perfect temperature.

He knew that a part of him loved me when we went out with a group of friends, and I was in the backseat and popped up between the front seats and said, “hi.” He was driving, and had never had someone do that, and for some unknown reason I just fit right into his places, and he didn’t let go.

Once he buttoned my sweater while I was talking because I had mentioned while rambling that I was cold. I didn’t realize until I got back to my dorm. I just sort of paused and stared at my buttons for a while, until the girl at the front desk that buzzed me in, asked if I planned on closing the door.

I left for England. He told me he loved me, and I didn’t know what to do with it, so he visited me.

We went to Wales because our flights to Ireland got canceled.

We ate strawberries at the local market, took pictures of doors, visited castles that were children’s play grounds, felt the coldest wind we have ever felt, walked back with not a single soul in the streets but flickering lights and pieces of snow, we laid on rocks and listened to the sea, visited a book store with damp covers, we drank hot chocolate with an old sailor, though he wasn’t at our table we imagined he was.

We just wondered around absolutely disconnected from our realities and absolutely absorbed in our momentary bliss.

Tonight I am thinking a lot about love.

My brother tells me I shouldn’t be so open, but in writing I can’t seem to be anything else.

My newsletters contain all the information one would ever want to know about the store, but this blog and this space is for me. Plus the only person that actually ever reads these is my mom.

Today I am in a really good mood. I had a bad day yesterday, and it feels good to be having a good one.

Some times I just have off days, as though my emotional timing is not keeping up with the hours passing. I felt behind physically all day.

I am in Cool Mom Picks again, and am thrilled to see my lovely Bholu’s up there!

Then Andrew and I took Addis on a walk last night, and it was so fun to watch her walk. I know that sounds silly to say, but when Addis walks it just makes me laugh and laugh. Her cheeks swing back and forth, and she has this expression on her face of where her journey might be heading.

She is not the best walker, and will try to stop many times a long the way, and is very easily distracted by other dogs and other people, she wants to meet them all.

She loves running very fast outside with a ball, but as she gets older I want to walk her more, I worry about her joints (a bulldogs downfall).

I love to watch the way she melts people’s hearts, how she will press her smooshy face into them and they just start to laugh.

Kids love her too, but she still has a lot of energy, so we tend to hold her pretty close while they pet her, so she doesn’t accidently bump their faces with her hard hard head out of excitement.

Addis is my greatest gift.

I got another order of books in today, I just love receiving books. I get so excited to see the covers, and feel the texture. I also, really enjoyed moving the little yellow car in the store into its place. It felt so freeing to be moving something so small.

I have always enjoyed exaggerated concepts and a little car really thrills me like a large crayon might. I just think it is the neatest thing, and that is about the best way I can put it.

Yes, I realize this is a pointless entry, but these are some of the things that are adding to my day.