Fat Girls Club: Gloria Vanderbilt, the Gateway Size

You know how people say that pot is the gateway drug for hardcore drug addiction? Well, then Gloria Vanderbilt must be the gateway label for the next size down when you're losing weight. It's no secret that GV is one of the worst vanity sizers out there. A size 6 in Vanderbilt would probably be a 12 in Calvin Klein, but hey. I'll take my 6 any way I can get it, and guess what?

I could have gotten it.

Of course, I didn't know it at the time. I was browsing around Costco and found a cute pair of pale pink capris for $16 that really needed to be mine. I've been fitting pretty comfortably into 8s lately, so I stuffed one in my cart and took it home. The next day I was astonished to discover that my new capris fit perfectly when I first put them on, and by the end of the day I was actually having to pull them up! You know what that means?

I should have gotten the 6! Dang it!

I can't even credit Weight Watchers any more. WW was just the thing I needed back when I was sitting at a desk all day. But apparently all I really needed was to take on a babysitting gig because I dropped 5 pounds in a week without counting points or even watching what I was eating. Who knew it could be so easy?

Who knew I would ever utter the words "Boys, stop mopping Grandma," or "Logan, stop making Claire play fetch," all in the same afternoon?

See what I'm saying?

Anywho, the stats are:

Pounds lost since 4/21: 6.6

Total pounds lost: 16.8

.

I'm over halfway to my goal of 30!

.

insert happy dance here

.

Rainy Day Revelations

I don't think I've ever been this exhausted. There is simply not enough coffee and/or Cherry Diet Dr. Pepper in the world to maintain the energy level I need to keep up with a newborn and a one, three, and four year old for 10 hours a day, and then attempt to make dinner/run errands/do laundry/tidy the house during the remaining few waking hours I have left. Good grief. I can see how a mother might be tempted to reach for her kid's Ritalin on occasion. Or hourly. Whatever.

This was a heck of a week. The newness wore off for both boys, and so now they are in constant disagreement mode. They argue for the sake of arguing. I had to referee so many fights this week I lost count around the 25,893rd one. Is this normal for three/four year old boys? Or am I just a complete and utter disaster of a baby-sitter? A week like this will really shake your confidence, I have to say. You know, come to think of it, I did only have those two baby-sitting gigs back in high school. Neither family ever invited me back.

Huh.

Mother Nature didn't help me much either. That hag rained on my baby-sitting parade not once, but twice during my 4-day week. I blame her for at least 50% of my strife. I think we were all feeling a little cagey. So, I racked my brain and came up with...

A Rainy Day Toybox!

Stop me if you've already heard this one. Personally, I thought it was genius. But I bet you already have a rainy day toybox, don't you? I can't help it if I'm slow. Anyway, I went and got a huge tub and am filling it up with new toys/crafts/activity books that can only be played with on days that we can't go outside. I thought this would give the boys something to look forward to on those dreary days and hopefully keep that caged animal vibe far, far away from the house of HeatherPride. Because the only time I could get the boys to be friends this week was to put them both in time out at the same time. At least then they could have a moment of solidarity.

Here's to better weather this week. And to getting along. And to more energy. Actually, maybe I'll just skip the coffee making step altogether and start eating the beans directly out of the bag. I think I'm on to something here.

How about you guys? What do you do when your little angels turn into rebellious, fighting hellions? Any tips?

Anything?

Hello?

Yep. I Opened this Can of Worms

Just when I had decided to put the babysitting gig to bed and become accustomed to our new (read: broke) way of living, I got a call last Sunday that rocked my world again. Remember the Normals? The one family that came by that I had actually enjoyed? The ones that pulled back out because their babysitter had made special arrangements to keep them?

WELL.

I got a desperate call on Sunday afternoon. Apparently, their sitter became gravely ill last weekend and had to give up all of her families at once, leaving them exactly two days to find alternate childcare. I can't even imagine how stressful that was for the families involved. So when they called to see if I still had two openings here in my home, I couldn't say no. I'm a sucker that way. If it hadn't been the Normals who needed my help, I don't think I would have done it. And Sunday afternoon to 6:30 am Monday morning did not exactly give me a lot of time to prepare! I didn't even have a chance to get groceries or plan any activities. Talk about winging it! But these kids (a three year old boy and a three month old baby girl) are great. The parents are great. And yes, I am busy. As in, I lost 2-1/2 pounds during my FIRST DAY of babysitting busy. And I've missed you! I am dying to get back to see what you guys are all up to.

Hang in there with me. I'm still trying to balance this crazy new lifestyle. Now instead of working 8 hours a day, I feel like I work nonstop until I literally collapse at night. I'm exhausted. But it's so much fun. I love it. Let me show you what we've been up to:

And that's just the first week!

Finding Center

.
So this is it. The first Friday of my first week of staying home. It's been....

GREAT.

I can't lie.

I love this new normal. I love being here with the kids. I love having two awesome SAHMs on my very block who have kids the same ages as my own. I even love cooking dinner when I'm not totally exhausted from working all day.

And then, of course, there were those interviews. Let's just say......I have decided to no longer post any ads on Craigslist for the babysitting gig. I can't believe how incredibly stressful that situation was, to have perfect strangers in my home with their perfectly strange children, inspecting every nook and cranny of my house while I followed them around, trying to convince them that I would not let their children play in the street, starve to death, or sit in front of the boob tube all day long. That last couple that came over? The one where I thought the interview went well? They pulled out. Because my house had...

stairs.

Dun, dun, duuuunnnnn

Horrible, lethal, carpet-covered stairs leading to the darkened bowels of my home, otherwise known as our finished basement and playroom. Surely, their two year old would die in some vain attempt to scale them. Never mind that I have a 12-month old of my own who has never had any broken bones or divets taken out of her precious skull due to unsupervised stair climbing. Forget the fact that my almost-five year old has been living in this home since he was a year and half and has never been to the ER for anything more serious than an ear infection. For the love, people.

That was kind of the last straw for me. I adore little kids, and I'd love to have them in my home. But their parents can suck it.

Well, that was kind of rude. What I meant to say, is that the parents have been a huge pain in my buttocks and I'm not sure I'm up for any more of their scrutiny. Better?

Lastly, I'd just like to give a public shout-out to The Skipper, who has been so amazingly awesome during this transitional time. Never mind that I single-handedly thrust us into this situation without any practice at being a one-income household. Skip has weathered this storm with only the occasional minor meltdown. What a champ.

Thanks, babe. This makes me haaaaaaaaaapppyyyyyyyyy. I hope it makes you happy, too.

Duck Salad

One of the things about being on Weight Watchers is that we always have a ton of fresh veggies in the fridge. Well, fresh as of the day that I actually make whatever recipe calling for the veggie du jour. After that, the remainder sits in my fridge with that not-so-fresh feeling until I either compost it or it liquefies, as was the unfortunate fate of the bag of green beans I discovered crammed in the back of my veggie compartment today. Oops. Anyway, I wish that if WW was going to make up recipes calling for, say, a half cup of chopped napa cabbage, they would at least give some suggestions on what to do with the remaining 2/3 head of cabbage you have leftover.

So after cleaning up the great green bean catastrophe of 2009, I dug out some of the other recent WW casualties. I remembered a flyer that my subdivision had circulated last year complaining that certain residents (ahem) were feeding the local ducks actual BREAD CRUMBS (nervey!) which was not only making our ducks lazy, it was making them unhealthy, too. The flyer went on to admonish that we as responsible residents should be purchasing actual duck chow from the Wild Birds store in the neighborhood so as to prevent scurvy. Or whatever disease it is ducks get from eating old bread.

Well I'm nothing if not a concerned citizen. Except instead of paying huge money for a bag of duck feed, I decided to make my own. Out of leftover parsley and napa cabbage. Don't thank me, ducks. You can totally thank Weight Watchers.

Don't tell me this doesn't look tasty.

It's a short walk to the duck pond. Or ogre swamp, as we like to call it. You know how some neighborhoods have those pretty duck ponds, with fountains in the middle and goldfish swimming around in them? Yeah, not ours. Our developer greedily built right over the top of some wetlands (yet our basement flood last summer still came as a surprise to us?), so they were forced to keep a chunk of our subdivision in its natural state. We're so GREEN and hip around here.

Don't be hatin' on our pretty lake.

We were excited to give the ducks some healthier fare than stale Sarah Lee. Even Claire was eager to get a piece of this action.

As soon as the ducks heard our tasty salad morsels splashing in the water, they flew and swam right in to us! Then they took one look at our floating greenery and very ungraciously swam the other direction.

Not even a thank you.

Huh. Next time it's stale hot dog buns and bread butts heels, right, Logan?

Back home to plot our next misdeeds....

What will the newest SAHM on the block do next? Will she wash the darks and lights together in the same load? Will she blog herself into oblivion while her children cry for more chicken dinosaur nuggets? Will she force her pale-faced offspring out into actual sunlight, causing temporary blindness?

Stay tuned....

You'll Find Me in the Archives

Oh, internets. I have so much angst right now I'm sick of myself. So today I'm taking a break from my regular life and headed to Camille's for a guest post. Come on up north while Camille is down south, eh?

Adventures in Babysitting

Well this has been a wild ride. If I thought investigating insurance fraud was a stressful job, that's because I'd never tried to take on the job of watching complete strangers' children before. Good heavens.

First, let me say that in case you've stopped by my site over the last couple of days you obviously noticed that I had made my blog private. That's because in my very early days of exploring the blogosphere I had put some comments up on a few blogs which included my first and last names. Now, any savvy parent googling a prospective babysitter would happen across those comments and possibly be able to link back to my blog, even though to do so would require someone to then google "view from the short bus" because in those days I didn't even know how to put a link up to my own site and botched the address all to heck. Heh. Newbies. Anyway, I just decided that I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of these people going for a ride on The Short Bus and privatized for a few days to get me through the "interview" process.

Which, omg. The interviews.

Unfortunately, none of my immediate friends and family were in need of a babysitter at the moment, so I was required to put an ad up on Craigslist for childcare services. I started getting hits immediately and set up a few interviews in my home, the first of which took place on my last day of work, which was a shame seeing as how I couldn't even have a glass of wine when I got home. Decisions like this are probably what kept me out of upper management in the corporate world, eh?

Anyway, Mom #1 comes over with her four year old. Let's just say......not a match. There were some issues there with speech and temper tantrums and attention span that led me to believe that there might have been some developmental issues with this kid. Although, some kids will act up when out of their element so who knows, maybe he's not like that on a regular basis. All I know is that I turned my back for a split second and the kid darted into my kitchen, raided my cookie jar and made off with the mother lode before I even knew what was happening. Then when his mother caught up with him there was a fit. And extreme awkwardness. When the mom emailed me the next day to say she was going to go with a neighbor, I was relieved to say the least.

The following day I had an interview with Mr. and Mrs. By-the-Book and their adorable 2 year old boy. The Mr. seemed fairly relaxed but as this was the first time Sonny had ever been in a child care environment, let's just say that Mrs. was feeling a bit peckish about the whole situation. The way that she was eyeballing my home made me feel like asking her if she'd like a white glove to complete her inspection. She came armed with every question in the book but she saved the best for last when she asked me if we were a Christian household, because this was very important to her. This took me back a bit for several reasons. First, I was happy to tell her that we indeed are a Christian home, but Christians are a diverse people. For instance, my home has a ton of wine-related decor. I used to live in Sonoma County. I have wineries 15 minutes away from where I live now. I love wine country. Love it. I am known to crack open a bottle of wine on occasion. However, when you speak of Christianity and drinking you have on one hand the Catholics, who are liberal with their libations, and then you have the tee-totalers on the other. Of course, maybe it wasn't the wine at all. There's a chance it could have been the Harry Potter and/or Twilight books on the bookshelves. Depending where you stand on the liquor/witchcraft/vampire issue(s), I'm either marching toward the pearly gates or beyond salvation altogether. From the constant look of disapproval on the Mrs.'s face, I can guess which category she put me in. And that's fine. Sometimes Christians are the worst judges of other Christians so it comes with the territory. But I think what bothered me more than that was the fact that she waited to ask her "important question" until after she had spent an hour rummaging through my home and my back yard, pointing out that they were interviewing every in-home service and daycare with an opening right now, going over all of Sonny's stats and dictating all their requirements to me. Now really. I appreciate a thorough parent but something just tells me that this woman would be trouble. The first time I let her kid watch an hour of TV or he came home with a bump on his elbow I'd be in hot water. Is it ok to hope they don't call back?

The third interview was yesterday afternoon with Mr. and Mrs. Normal. Oh, what joy to have a reasonable, delightful couple in my home with their precious newborn! They also had a three year old son at home who would have been a perfect playmate for Logan. I was so grateful to meet some people who were friendly and easy. They exuded the "good parent" vibe without broaching "mother hen" territory. They were complimentary of my home and children and were ready to bring their kids to me ASAP. I was so happy I treated myself to a trip to Costco (which had been off-limits due to our new budgetary restraints..) to celebrate. I stocked up on snacks for my new charges and was ready to go home and crack a bottle of celebratory wine when I got the call. Their current sitter wanted them to stay so badly she is making special arrangements for them. They are going to stay with her. GAH. I wanted to cry.

So? Back on Craigslist last night. Got a call this morning. Another afternoon interview today. If you see my site blocked again tomorrow, now you know why. Just let me get past this phase and I'll be back to my regular Bus Route, okay? Now I'm off to see what you guys have been up to.

Updated: Ok, I went private again. Only this time I added a bunch of people to the "approved" list. Hopefully this won't last long! The interview today went well. We'll see what happens.