Battling Halloween

I always had that forboding feeling that once my kids went to school, I would lose my tightly held control over their lives and they would be at the mercy of external influences – and kids that taught them to swear.

And I was right!

My 7-year-old is as sharp as a whip and has an amazing grasp of the English language. And by grasp, I mean that she is starting to gather an arsenal of swear words. Mostly thanks to her BFF at school!

And now the latest external influence that I am battling against is not just from school friends, but from the media and marketers. It’s Halloween.

I was always so dead set against celebrating Halloween. I was happy to leave that to people in the States. It is their gig and they do it brilliantly. It’s not an Aussie thing at all. Until recently.

Now there are giant pumpkins in Coles supermarkets; Halloween costumes and novelty gifts everywhere; and my 5-year-old’s day care has Halloween dress up days.

Last year we actually had trick-or-treaters!

It was only a pathetically small trickle of people that came to our door, including a young couple and their toddler who drove to my street from their rough neighbourhood because they wanted to trick-or-treat in nicer surroundings!

It seems that everyone is trying so hard to make Halloween a big thing. And it’s getting more and more difficult to shut the door on the whole event – especially when your kids have friends with parents who throw themselves into decorating the house and dressing up for Halloween.

I feel I’m fighting a losing battle!

Is anyone else trying to hold out against succumbing to the pressure of celebrating Halloween? We need to stick together!

Sorry, no time to chat

I’ve had a crazy (but very typical) Sunday.

It went a bit like this:

6.15am: Five-year-old son wakes me up to make him breakfast. I tell him I’ll be two minutes.

Hello, I’m your wife! Hello there. I thought you looked familiar!

6.16am: Say good morning to husband.

6.17am: Fall asleep again.

7am-ish: Five-year-old son wakes me up to make him breakfast. I actually get up and make his breakfast (adding extra Weet Bix so he doesn’t ask for seconds) and also make my seven-year-old daughter’s breakfast.

7:05am: Tell kids Mummy needs a nap and go back to bed.

7.25am: Husband wakes up and gets morning papers.

7.30am: I wake up – again! – have shower and meet up with rest of family. Say good morning to everyone again.

7.31am: Eat a low calorie breakfast and read papers.

8am: Get kids dressed for the day.

8.15am: Work out week’s worth of low calorie meals and write shopping list. I think I’ve had a short conversation with my husband…

8.45am: Play with kids.

9.41am: Leave for the gym to do Body Step class.

11.20am: Arrive home.

12 noon: Husband leaves to do shopping. I play with kids.

2pm: I take son to fly kite. We were all going to go out and do something together as a family, but my daughter twisted her ankle running and had to stay home. Husband stays home with her.

2.45am: Come home.

2.47am: Husband goes  for a swim.

4.30pm: We are all finally at home together! Yay!

It is now 9.50pm and here I am, while my husband has gone to bed. Maybe I need to schedule a meeting so we can actually talk to each other! Instead of conversations, we just seem to say “Hi” and “Bye”.

We’ll probably stay together forever at this rate! No time to chat means no time to disagree.

I think I’ve just stumbled across the secret of a happy marriage!

Time for confession

Last Friday I confessed my sins.

I laid them all out on the table. I answered every question truthfully, because I knew if I withheld the truth, then I was wasting my time.

It was very cathartic.

It was with my nutritionist.

Many of you may remember that last year I was placed on a FODMAP free diet after suffering with painful bloating for years. Being on a FODMAP free diet is like being diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  A very unsexy syndrome, but a surprisingly common one.

FODMAPS are poorly absorbed short chain carbs and it stands for Fermentable Oligo- Di- and Mono- saccharides and Polyols. Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

Basically there is a large group of foods that contain these types of carbs and sugars that I need to avoid – and it’s the good stuff.  Some items on the banned list include garlic, onion, mushrooms, peaches, watermelon, legumes, wheat, artificial sweeteners and sometimes caffeine.

I’ve been struggling with sticking to this diet (and sometimes failing miserably) with trying to cook for my family AND lose weight.

Since January this year, I’ve been trying to juggle my diet with being on Weight Watchers.  And it worked for a little while, but trying to stick to the Weight Watchers eating plan while substituting FODMAP-friendly foods was starting to backfire. I was Watching my Weight climb instead of fall!

So I went to the nutritionist to discuss how I can look after my health, and lose weight at the same time.

Hence the confession.

As part of the consultation, I had to tell her what I ate on a daily basis!

I started the confession with “I know I’m eating really well, but I don’t know why I’m not losing weight.”

Her response was to roll her eyes and say “If I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me…”

She didn’t actually say it out loud, but I knew she was thinking it!

Then all my little secrets came tumbling out.

The daily enormous coffee, the daily can of Diet Coke (sometimes two) the daily visit to the vending machine for chocolate (unluckily for me and my willpower, Cadbury Daily Milk chocolate is OK for my tummy).

And of course she told me I was doing it all wrong and to change my ways. And surprisingly her advice was exactly what I needed! So now I am watching my portions, drinking more water (I’m constantly running off to the loo!), cutting down my Diet Cokes and coffee,  and watching my calories!

It’s certainly not rocket science! But sometimes we need someone to remind us of the simple solutions to get us back on track, don’t we?

Lightbulb moment

I was just about to drag my sorry self off to bed; debating whether I should get up in six hours time to go to the gym or not – when it hit me.

I don’t need to stress if I can’t think of at least five paragraphs of things to say in my posts.

Sometimes a short post is a good post.

Goodnight!

Time out

Time is my enemy.

It’s marching across my face.

It’s running out on me and making me get home from work later and later.

It’s moving too fast and making my kids grow up.

It’s hurtling me towards my 41st and I am NOT ready to lose that zero at the end of my age!

It’s compacting; so the minute we finish Easter, Christmas decorations are in the stores.

It’s not letting me be 100% committed to my job; 100% committed to my kids; 100% committed to my husband; and 100% committed to me.

And it drags every time I’m jogging on the treadmill.