By 7:00 this morning my ears were already TOTALLY FULL. The children are narrating their EVERY THOUGHT, and they talk over each other and then one of them tries to ask me a question about why it’s windier in daytime than in nighttime and another one asks me to get another cup of milk and a third one tries to tell me a joke, and I feel like I’m going to SCREEEEEEEEEEEAM. Combine that with the endless CRASHES and FIGHTS and TATTLING, and you have mommy putting vodka in her coffee. (You don’t actually have mommy putting vodka in her coffee. You just have mommy thinking about how terrible that would taste.)

This is the last chance to enter to win the $100 Visa giftcard over on the reviews blog by either praising the Fourth of July recipe I came up with or admiring the twins practicing for kindergarten. And really, I think you should praise my recipe, because when I got that assignment I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do. A RECIPE using POP-TARTS. And it had to be Fourth of July themed. I….that’s not really my….you know? And when I came up with my idea, I just about lost consciousness from the perfection of it (it uses exactly one box of Pop-Tarts!), and I worried that the other bloggers would all come up with the same idea because it was so perfect. But no one else did! And although some of them came up with pretty good ideas, I’m sure they were all jealous of mine. I’m imagining Pop-Tarts executives (“What do you do?” “I’m a Pop-Tarts executive”) sitting around a big table saying, “Did you SEE what she came up with? We had no idea this project would be such a success! We need to bring her onto the Pop-Tarts Executive Team RIGHT AWAY! Tell the Pop-Tarts pilot to warm up the Pop-Tarts jet!”

Can I ask for your input on something? Three of my kids lovvvvvvvve video games. What do you think is the right amount of time to let children play video games per day when there’s no school? I guess I’m looking for RANGES here, since probably none of us are, like, “90 minutes YES, 91 minutes NO WAY.” You don’t have to HAVE children to give an opinion on this.

It would be useful to know whether you yourself like video games—I think I would have said a much lower number of minutes before getting into playing Sims and being, like, “I AM GOING TO HAVE TO QUIT MY JOB TO PLAY THIS FULL-TIME,” which has given me more empathy for the “WHAT?? I JUST started playing!!” children.

I think it’s going to be tempting to downplay the amount of time we allow (or would theoretically allow), but I hope you’ll say so if the answer is “6 hours” or “however much they want” or anything more than you think is average. Maybe go anonymous if it makes you feel shy to say it—I know I’D feel shy to say how much I let my kids watch/play, especially before someone else said how much THEY allowed.

Yesterday I ran into the girl I used to refer to as “the girl who stole my boyfriend in high school,” but recently realized I should probably refer to as “the girl my boyfriend cheated on me with in high school,” not only because the first statement implies that men are faultless pawns in games played by women (like when people call Angelina Jolie a homewrecker, as if Brad Pitt didn’t wreck his own home), but also because the boyfriend in question saw her only briefly (evidently the relationship thrived under cheating conditions but not otherwise) and then was my boyfriend again, for reasons I can’t satisfactorily explain except to say that he was QUITE cute and QUITE charming aside from the cheating thing, and I DID dump him permanently after the second time he cheated with her (and again, their relationship fizzled out).

ANYWAY, I saw the girl my high school boyfriend cheated on me with, and she was wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh shirt. And it’s not that there is one single thing wrong with wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh shirt, but still, I had a flash of sympathy for her because that is not what I would want to be wearing on such an occasion, if I were her.

Speaking of high school, I would like to know what language you studied in school, and why did you choose it? I started with French because I thought French seemed ROMANTIC, and then after two years of that I switched to Latin because I thought it would help with my SATs. It turned out I liked Latin a lot better (it’s not a spoken language anymore, so no one can criticize your accent!), so I took three more semesters of it in college.

As you already know if you follow me on Twitter (and why WOULDN’T you, since that is where I give updates on how irritated I am by the high price of shipping a few rolls of address labels?) (NINE DOLLARS WTF!!!), I’m bored with my usual exercise routine and looking for a change. I don’t usually talk about exercise here because it doesn’t occur to me as a topic of interest (but SHIPPING costs! THAT’S entertainment!), but I wonder if that’s why whenever I write on the topic of fatness I get some “Fine, don’t exercise or eat right, BE fat” feedback—as if that’s the natural opposite of “Everyone can have the same results with the same effort.”

So. Fine. I will try to remember to talk about exercise more. (Also on the syllabus: how much broccoli and spinach I eat, and how little red meat.) Currently I exercise in the evening, right after the kids go to bed, because that’s when it’s been working best: the kids wake us up around 5:30, and I know I COULD get up earlier but so far haven’t been motivated to. In the evening I’m less likely to be interrupted, and some of my routines let me watch a movie while exercising which makes it not quite so “ack I’m cutting into my limited slice of free time.”

BUT. That’s not working for me now. I used to get a second wind in the evening, but now I feel worn out. I used to be willing to cut into that limited slice of free time, but now the idea makes me feel sullen. Also, I’m bored with both the Wii Fit and with running, so that makes me feel even MORE sullen: not only am I using up free time, I’m doing something I HATE.

Well, so clearly that means an adjustment is in order. I asked for suggestions on Twitter, and 30 Day Shred is now on its way to me (hey, I finally read Twilight, this is the next natural step), despite the fact that the mere FACIAL EXPRESSIONS of Jillian Michaels make me want to punch her in the teeth, and this is without ever hearing her voice, which reportedly is unpleasant and mean. I also have several other people’s suggestions on my Netflix queue, and I wish I’d thought of Netflix before I paid money for 30 Day Shred, but there it is and I can always donate it to the library if I don’t like it.

The other adjustment, and to me this is far more radical, is I’m going to try exercising in the morning, before and while Paul is showering. Aaaaaaaaacccccckkkkkkkk. But if it WORKS, it means it’ll cut into my sleep time instead of into my free time, and may make it easier for me to get to sleep at night in which case it would in fact be cutting into my lying-awake-wishing-I-could-sleep time, which would be awesome. ALSO, it would mean I could shower right after, which would mean a reduction in the part of exercising I hate most, which is the part where I have to change clothes! and take ANOTHER shower! and change clothes! which seems like no big deal but can add another big chunk of free time to the process. ALSO-also, it would mean getting it over with first-thing rather than dreading it and/or making it dependent on what kind of day I have.

BUT, it also means I can’t go running (because if a child needed something, which is likely, Paul would be in the shower and I’d be out of the house). And it means an increase in the possibility of a hugely annoying mid-exercise interruption (such as child waking up soaked). And it means I’ll have to argue with my half-asleep self, and she’s even more sullen than my evening self.

Another potential problem is this: Evening exercising significantly decreased EATING, because I didn’t want to exercise on a full stomach and afterward my appetite was suppressed. I’d do ZERO snacking all evening, and by the time I started feeling hungry it was too close to bedtime to eat anything. If I’m exercising in the morning, though, it opens the evening up for snacking, and it also may mean I’ll have a mid-morning eat-everything-in-sight time.

So we will SEE, is what I am saying.

I tried it for the first time this morning and it went okay. The novelty of the situation made it easier to get out of bed, and it was very pleasant to be able to take a chilly shower afterward and know it could be the ONLY shower of the day. My new workout DVDs haven’t arrived yet so I did one of my old Tae Bo DVDs. Gosh, I’d forgotten how much I hate the girl who acts like she’s about to fall to the ground and start twitching with bliss. Yes, we all know you find this workout so INCREDIBLY STIMULATING it makes you want to SHOUT WITH JOY, but the rest of us are sweating and counting minutes so could you please shut your Teacher’s Pet trap, kthanx. Hey, I just thought of a new awesome product: a workout DVD in which NONE of the participants make you want to smack them! Imagine such a world!

Last night I dreamed Jonniker was having a multi-day party at her house and she let me come, and I was nervous but I went anyway and then kept wondering, “WHY DO I NOT DO THINGS LIKE THIS MORE OFTEN??” because it was so fun. I was also wondering if we really should be drinking ALL day long like that, and why no one seemed surprised that Justin Timberlake was naked. I had to leave early because I had to give birth to four kittens at the hospital, but who DOESN’T have that dream amirite?

It is time to take action on my hair. I’ve been growing it, and that’s still fun so I want to keep doing that, but it is looking overgrown and overthick, and it’s getting painful to comb even when I use lots of detangler. I’m going to make an appointment with my favorite stylist (Krissy–*starry eyes*) because she ALWAYS knows what to do. When I was growing out my bangs, I went to her and I was like, “Nothing can be done about that, I’m sure,” and she was like “Mm hm” and then she gave me a cut that was like I’d already grown out the bangs. Doesn’t talk much, does Krissy, but KNOWS ALL. (I feel a little sorry for her about her name. She doesn’t seem like a Krissy. She seems like a Beth, or an Erin, or a Cara.)

Do you know what else, about my hair? I worry that it is Too Much with the five kids and the no/low make-up. I always wear it twisted up, and it’s just…er. Especially with the maxi skirts I bought recently. Maxi skirts are fashionable right now, but long skirt + long twisted-up hair + many more children than usual + no make-up—-it starts to look like something I’m not. Or even SEVERAL things I’m not.

I don’t know why this reminds me of it, but we had someone straight out of another habitat walking down our street the other day. Normally in our town, if I see a woman walking a dog, she’s wearing capris and a t-shirt and sunscreen, she has hair that doesn’t catch your attention, and her dog is a medium-sized mutt type or a golden retriever. THIS woman had long straightened streaked hair, a deep tan, make-up that was clearly visible from my car, short-short-short shorts, glittery sandals, a cardigan longer than the shorts, sunglasses, and a tiny white fluffy dog on a pink leather leash. I hadn’t realized we had so little of that kind of thing until I was so startled seeing it. It’s like I hadn’t realized how few old people lived in the town I used to live in, until I moved to the town I live in now.

Today needs a plan. It is only breakfast time, and yet the goal “Do not go slap out of mind” is setting the bar TOO HIGH.

I thought about going to Target, because Target is always a soothing balm unto my soul, but…five children.

I could take them to the park, but the twins are getting their 5-year pictures taken tomorrow, and Edward already has a scrape on his cheekbone and a bug bite on his forehead, and I feel like that is my limit for facial injuries.

I made myself a challenge, a boring and depressing challenge but a challenge nevertheless, to see how many loads of laundry I could get done—and right out of the gate discovered I’d left a load in the washer and would need to re-run it. “That’s going to cost her, Becky.” “You got that right, Jim. We’ll have to see if she can make up the time by shaving some minutes off the next wash cycle.”

I updated the frappe recipe below, to include calorie info and a non-coffee alternative.

On impulse I ordered a mocha frappe at McDonald’s, and UM YUMMY. The ingredients didn’t seem hard to figure out: I guessed coffee, chocolate, milk. I tasted cream, so probably it was whole milk or maybe a blend of whole milk and cream. I could see little teeny bits of ice, so either there was ice in it too or else the coffee was frozen. I often have leftover coffee, so I froze some.

It’s hard to make things at home because I have to acknowledge what’s in them. If I get a frappe, all I have to think about it how much it costs and how good it tastes, and I don’t have to think, “Hey, am I drinking…CREAM??”

But the nice thing about making things at home is that I can substitute. In this case, I used 2% milk, but next time I’ll try it with skim.

One cup milk

Squeeze the Hershey syrup for awhile
(I’ll try to remember to measure next time.)

Blend. While it’s blending, add eight coffee ice cubes and two plain water ice cubes through the hole in the lid. (If yours doesn’t have a hole in the lid, shut off blender, remove lid, add a cube, replace lid, blend, shut off blender, remove lid, add a cube….)

Another squeeze of chocolate syrup, perhaps

PLEASE AND THANK YOU

Makes enough for two people to have some, or for one person to have seconds.
I am the only one in my house who likes coffee.

Update! I looked online and got calorie info for the McDonald’s Frappe.

Then I made my version again, so I’d know how many ounces. Fluid ounces are a little tricky because the blender puts air into the mixture, so presumably the ounces wouldn’t be the same after the mixture sits for awhile, but anyway, my recipe made 18 ounces so let’s compare it to the 16-ounce medium.

I used 1/2 cup skim milk (40 calories), 1/2 cup 2% milk (65 calories), and 4 T. (or 1/4 c.) Hershey syrup (200 calories FTLOG). (The Hershey syrup is a great example of the point I made near the beginning about how it can be harder to make things at home where I have to Acknowledge The Ingredients). That’s a total of 305 calories, and it’s quite chocolatey and sweet; if my goal were to reduce the calories, I could use less chocolate syrup and/or replace some of the syrup with unsweetened cocoa and plain sugar (or even Splenda, I suppose). If I’d known it would be so close to the hundred-calorie mark, I might have done all skim milk and then it would have been 280 calories which sounds much less—AND would have been exactly half the calories of the 560-calorie medium frappe.

Another note: the second time I made it, it wasn’t thick enough. I didn’t want to add more coffee ice cubes because I was doing measurements, but I think it could easily have used another couple of cubes—which might have brought it ounces up to compare to the 680-calorie large frappe, an even more impressive calorie difference.

And yet another note: The kids were all very jealous that I got to drink a “shake,” but they all hated the coffee flavor, so I froze MILK ice cubes and made the same recipe but with milk-cubes instead of coffee-cubes. VERY good, and just like giving them chocolate milk—but with them having the feeling they’re getting ice cream.

So! I take a birth control pill called Ocella. Ocella is the generic for Yasmin. And if I understand it correctly, Yasmin and Yaz are the pills that have been in the news recently because of a bunch of problematic side effects including symptoms such as DEATH. Which concerns me, but not a lot, because I read prescription inserts, and ALL versions of the pill have little pamphlets that come with them that basically say, “You understand that by taking the pill you are specifically requesting to die, right?” And if THOSE seem scary, I read the pamphlet that comes with a mere TAMPON and that puts it in perspective.

But! My cousin is in the hospital because she was on Yasmin and got a blood clot in her lung. And while a brief hospital stay is in my repertoire of parenting fantasies (another is solitary confinement in prison), I get that this is not actually a vacation. (She’s expected to make a full recovery and is impatient to get out of there.)

There are few reactions less sensible and more human than deciding to go off a medication after someone I KNOW has a problem—as opposed to after a bunch of people I DON’T know have problems. My cousin having a blood clot in her lung means exactly ZERO for my likelihood of having trouble with a medication, or for the statistical dangers of the medication, or for how the medication compares in danger to other medications. And I tell you this with a self-deprecating shrug, because NEVERTHELESS. I’ll finish out this packet and then that’s it.

So isn’t this fun? We’re back to the birth control problem, and MY GOODNESS does this ever go around and around and around again. My favorite birth control ever was the Fertility Awareness Method, which made me feel SUPAH SMAHT, but Paul’s not willing to do that one now: it was perfect when an unexpected pregnancy would have been fine and even welcome, but that was then and this is now.

Every time I bring up this topic, lots of people suggest the IUD. On paper, this would be the best option for me right now: it doesn’t have the hormones that cause problems, and it’s long-term but it wouldn’t be hard to remove if there was a change in the no-more-babies decision. But the IUD works by allowing conception to take place but then not allowing the zygote to take hold, and that makes me feel uncomfortable, so for now this method is out of the running. (The pill, too, works by making the uterine lining unreceptive to a zygote—but because it first attempts to prevent ovulation altogether, this is more okay with me. The hormone IUD works more like the pill, but in that case I’d rather just take the pill.)

All barrier methods seem practically MEDIEVAL, and they require a level of responsibility more consistent with people for whom an unplanned pregnancy would be fine.

I’ve tried Depo-Provera—but again, if I’m going to use hormones, I’d just as soon use the pill. I don’t have any trouble remembering to take the pill regularly, so going in for a shot every few months is actually MORE of a hassle for me.

Soooooo, we’re back around to the pill, but a different formula. Or…well…

Well, it could be Time for The Snip. I have been verrrrrrry reluctant to make a permanent decision about this, but the other night I said to Paul that if he was REALLY SURE, then it was TIME TO STOP MAKING ME RUIN MY LIFE WITH HORMONES. It was partly a tantrum and partly serious. I’d probably have another baby if he changed his mind, because hey, free baby, but as my youngest finishes potty-training and my second-youngests go to kindergarten this fall I do also feel more ready to say “Fine. Done. I guess that was it.”

(I didn’t post this a couple of nights ago when I wrote it, because after being up all night I didn’t want to have to deal with the comments that day. Now I’m well-rested.)

It’s the middle of the night, and I’ve been up agitating about the implications of the cat. I mean, here’s this cat, right? She eats only an optimal nutritious diet. She doesn’t have access to junk food. She lives nearly her entire adult life in complete health: aside from routine vaccinations and one small and quickly-remedied bout with fleas, she never needs medical care for anything. She weighs 12 pounds all that time—and at every annual vet check-up, the vet mentions that she should lose weight, that her “healthy weight” would be more like 6 pounds, that we should try reducing her already-below-average intake of nutritious food, that we should try feeding her food that includes stuff that isn’t food.

This struggle goes on for nearly the cat’s ENTIRE—and COMPLETELY HEALTHY—LIFE. She reaches 16 years old, which is a nice old age for a cat. Finally she begins to have some old-age-related health problems, and then her thyroid breaks, and she drops to her “healthy weight.”

The quotes are deliberate, because what does “healthy weight” even…MEAN here? The weight at which…what? Clearly not “the weight at which the creature is healthy,” because Mouse was healthy at 12 pounds, eating a nutritious diet. Clearly not “the weight that is natural for that particular creature,” since again, 12 pounds was natural for her. I suppose her “healthy weight,” then, would be the amount of flesh that would be average for the size of her frame, but what relevance would that have for her individual cat self? Her own body was round and plump, so how does the average of the entire cat population, including all cat body types, apply to her? Why would she need to strive to put her body RIGHT AT the average, rather than letting it contribute its own data point to the average?

The main question I’m asking—duh—is what does this cat’s body tell us about our own bodies? If a creature that doesn’t have food choices, isn’t shamed by news-like television showing pictures of fat people walking down the street with “THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC!!” flashing over them, and is an ANIMAL who doesn’t have Food Issues to work through with her therapist—-if THIS CREATURE is at her correct weight when she weighs twice as much as an average cat of her frame size, then what does this tell us about our own weights and our own health—and our own “health”?

I’m awake in the middle of the night thinking about how there are women who go on diets so they won’t be the embarrassing Fat Mom. These are women who wouldn’t get a nose job if their nose shape embarrassed the kids. They’d laugh long and rich if those children suggested the women should change their own personal fashion style for something the children considered cooler. But they’ll have their healthy digestive systems surgically altered so that those systems will be unable to work properly and the effect will be weight loss, and they’ll do it so they won’t embarrass their children with their appearance. (I’m FULLY IN FAVOR OF SURGERIES ((including nose jobs!)) for people who want them, and have looked into it for myself; what I’m not in favor of is an atmosphere of shame and disproportionate fear, or the idea that a person should alter their appearance to avoid offending/embarrassing others.)

Or they won’t have the surgery, they’ll instead change their lives to dedicate enormous time and energy to the alteration and upkeep of their bodies. The boulder will have to be pushed up the hill, and then it will have to be held there, NEARLY at the top, for the rest of the women’s lives. It will be their life’s most consuming project—with all the work gone the instant they die, leaving nothing of value behind to show for it. I hope it’s obvious I’m not talking about situations where this effort brings a person joy.

Well, or maybe some of them won’t give the embarrassment reason, maybe they’ll say it’s because they want to be around to see their children grow up. They want to be around to see their grandchildren. If women in their 30s are dropping dead of fatness all around us, leaving their poor motherless children behind, and of course we want to prevent that. Well worth the cost, financial and otherwise, to take actions that are in fact MORE UNHEALTHY and MORE DANGEROUS than carrying some extra weight. (I’m FULLY IN FAVOR of keeping healthy to prolong life, and as a parent I know how motivating it is to think pleasant thoughts of future family stuff, and it’s a great idea to use that as motivation for making the choices we want to make. Again, what I’m opposed to is the atmosphere of shame and of exaggerated/inappropriate fear.)

Pardon my French, but what kind of fucked-up merde is this? Let’s think again of Mouse, whose healthy weight (if we must try to apply such a term) is TWICE AS HIGH as an average cat of her frame size. Should we have had her healthy digestive system surgically altered in pursuit of that average? Should we have put her on a little cat treadmill for 2 hours a day while letting a mean person scream at her that she just needed to DO IT and STOP WHINING ABOUT IT!!!

And if we should have, what would have been the purpose? To take a healthy and natural cat body and make it into…what? and why?

Clearly I want to draw a connection between these two things: Mouse, who was healthy and round and plump at her natural weight of 12 pounds, and human women, many of whom are also healthy and round and plump at their natural weights of twice the average. And clearly, many readers are already composing their arguments why this connection can’t be drawn, or why an analogy that doesn’t apply in every single case doesn’t apply in any cases at all, or why there’s nothing wrong with being fit (of COURSE there isn’t), or why fatness REALLY TRULY IS a terrible health hazard, or how if we allow people to think it’s okay to be fat they won’t eat well or exercise (the assumption is that fat people neither eat well nor exercise), or how if people really did eat a healthy diet they wouldn’t be plump even though the cat was, or how for them being thin has nothing to do with appearance, or how they’re sure I’m right that SOME women are healthy and plump but MOST of them are lying to themselves cramming fast food down their throats and eating entire bags of chips and getting diabetes and heart disease, or how they themselves are fat and eat this way, or used to be fat while eating that way, and OBESITY EPIDEMIC OBESITY EPIDEMIC OMG ROACHES CRAWLING EVERYWHERE OBESITY EPIDEMIC!!!!1!

Or they’re composing attacks against women who are thin, or who are athletic, because if it’s okay to have a fat body it must NOT be okay to have a thin one! If it’s okay NOT to choose to get surgery for purely appearance-related reasons, it must be NOT okay to get surgery for purely appearance-related reasons, OR for reasons that include non-appearance-based elements! If it’s okay to NOT feel that spending a lot of time in athletic pursuits is a good investment, it must not be okay for someone else to feel like it IS a good investment! There can’t be more than one acceptable way to look and act or else HOW WILL WOMEN KNOW HOW WE’RE SUPPOSED TO MAKE OURSELVES LOOK AND ACT???

And many, many people will assume that because I don’t think people should be shamed into changing their appearance, or because I think fatness gets a disproportionate measure of blame for health problems while other health-impacting things get disproportionately little (especially considering how very little science is even willing to make GUESSES about at this point), or because I think sometimes people say it’s about health when it’s not, this means I think people should eat nothing but junk! and should never exercise! and that weight has NO impact on health! and that I have no idea how important it is to be HEALTHY!! And some people will assume that because I think everyone has different body types and that not everyone can achieve the same results with the same efforts and that we should see if science can find out more about this, that means I think NO ONE CAN CHANGE AT ALL!! and no one should try!! and everyone should just pig out and sit around all the time because IT’S HOPELESS AND STUPID!! And some people will think that because I think the culture has become scary and toxic and non-science-based on the subject of weight and needs a major overhaul, that means NO ONE SHOULD TRY TO LOSE WEIGHT FOR ANY REASON. Sigh.

I’m already weary of all of it, and it hasn’t even started.

So why deliberately post on the topic, if I’m going to flinch queasily every time a new comment comes in, wondering if this’ll be a Bad One? Why do it, if the adrenaline will make me snappish with the children, and if I’ll dread going to my computer, and if I’ll have to start using all my anti-mental-illness measures such as sunlight and funny books and nice hair conditioner? Why do it when I KNOW I will be misunderstood by at least a few people and probably a lot of them? Partly it’s because I think this subject is important, and I think the resulting feedback and discussions and posts end up showing the problem better than I can do by writing about it. Partly it’s that I think we keep working with theories and not wondering enough why those theories give us inconsistent results. Partly it’s that this is one of My Topics: some of us are super-laid-back and wonder why the rest of us can’t just stop thinking about things if they get us so UPSET, but most of us have a small handful of hot issues we go back to AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN, despite ourselves. BECAUSE OF ourselves.

And probably more than any of those things it’s because this is what I DO: I write about what I’m thinking about, and I publish it online. Some people think it out, some people talk it out, some people exercise it out, some people therapy it out—and I publish-it-online it out. I suppose a couple of generations ago I would have had to keep writing letters to the editor or something. Maybe get a little printing press and spend sleepless nights lining up the inky little letters, and spend the next morning handing out my little leaflets.