One last thing

This will be my last post for NEDAwareness Week.

As I read what I've written this week, I feel like I need to leave this on a hopeful note. I'm going to share with you 2 quotes, both written by women who are recovery:

Carrie Arnold who writes ED Bites:

I mean, I would be very very stupid to forget that I had an eating disorder. When I was first diagnosed (before it turned into the 8 year drama that it has), my mom would say that she hoped I could "put this all behind me" one day. Forget about it. Move on. Except to forget that my brain chemistry changes when I don't eat properly would set me up for a relapse.

Working through lunch isn't good for anyone; for me, it's playing with fire. And I will get burned.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to be anorexic forever. It doesn't mean that I have to obsess about food and weight and exercise every day. It just means I have to be mindful.

Shelly Guillory via Mama Vision:

Slowly, it is staring to get a little easier and I am grateful I didn’t give up. I am now trying to find a job. The nursing field is stressful and because I am now just starting to take care of myself I don’t feel I am ready to take care of people in that environment just yet. Plus, I might go back to school because I am healthy to do so. I guess I feel like I CAN really do anything I want to do. I hate to admit when I am wrong, but I guess everyone was right…again!

To those of you who are fighting don’t give up no matter how hard it gets…you have already made the commitment to at least start to fight. For those of you contemplating recovery my hope is that you try before it is too late.

I think it's tremendously brave of them to share so much of themselves, and I am so grateful for these words today.

Thinking outside yourself

It's still NEDAwareness week.

The National Eating Disorder Association's theme for this week is embracing your genes. Whenever you're trying to create change in yourself, it's easier to focus outside yourself on the reasons why, but the actual change can't happen until you're doing it for you.

It's easy for me to look at my girls and love them as they are. It was harder for me to look in the mirror and love myself as I am. When I looked in the mirror, I would fixate on my flaws until my view was entirely distorted and I could no longer understand why anyone loved me. When you're in that state of mind, you can't love and care for the people in your life as you want to because you're running on empty. Author Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged) summed this up well: "To say 'I love you' one must first say 'I'."

Anyway, as promised, here are the steps I am taking:

Mealtimes aren't about eating every bite on plates. If the girls push their plates away after two or three bites, that's fine. Dessert is not a reward in my house. It just is. If you ate everything on your dinner plate and requested seconds, you get a piece of dark chocolate. If you ate 3 bites of your mashed potatoes, you get a piece of dark chocolate. I still gently remind them that this is the meal and if they choose not to eat it they will be hungry until the next one, but I can't make them eat.

I avoid diet talk, and politely shut down other people's diet talk in front of them. If Lauren asks me about "good" and "bad" food, which is what they're teaching in school, I reply that "a variety of different foods makes up good nutrition".

I don't engage in self-effacing discussion and avoid people that do. I realized as we were going to spend the weekend with Nanny and Poppy last weekend (we didn't go - they canceled because of the snow) this is going to mean being vigilant and occasionally abrasive and unpopular particularly with some members of our families.

Ugly duckling

NEDAwareness week continues...

There's a genetic component to eating disorders. My best guess is that it's similar to how alcoholism runs in families that there is the brain chemistry aspect of it, but also the environment where drug use is encouraged. It's hard to separate out these two influences. Today, I'm going to talk a little about my experiences growing up, and tomorrow I'm going to talk about what I'm trying to do about the environment my girls are growing up in. I think it is important to acknowledge that there's no way of changing or "fighting against" the genetic aspects of this disease.

I was a small kid. Although my parents fall into average heights, I was always the smallest kid in the class. Smaller than some of the kids in the neighborhood who were 2 years my junior. From the time I was about 10, my brother Ben - who grew to be quite tall - was bigger enough than I to be mistaken for the older sibling.

One of the things I didn't understand until very recently is that right before girls go through puberty, they gain weight. There's a set point required for the menses to occur. I remember at age 11, I was suddenly huge and walking into everything. It seemed as if overnight, the girth of my hips became tremendous. I was an athletic kid - I swam breaststroke and freestyle for the town swim team and played soccer. It was at this point I began thinking that my thighs were too wide and my calves too thick. It was around this time that I went to my mom and expressed that I thought I needed to lose weight.

Perhaps it was her way of being supportive that she let me start calorie restricting, because her own mother probably dismissed her own pubescent concerns with "You'll grow out of the weight". Perhaps it was that she didn't think there was any real harm in her pre-teen not drinking cola and eating oreos.

I can't recall my mother every saying anything positive about her body, or ever being happy with the way she looked. At my lowest adult weight - achieved through a combination of a crash diet and starvation - that my husband tried to elicit her support in putting an end to "Please tell her she should stop dieting", my mother managed only "She could still lose 10 pounds". It certainly doesn't compare with my sister's path, it is only my way of relating to it. I won't say that my mother caused my sister to have an eating disorder, but I have to think that things might have been different if there wasn't a constant overtone of self-hatred.

Is everyone disordered?

Another post for NEDAwareness week...

I have to wonder as I look around the gym, how prevalent disordered behavior really is. There was one day last week when I noticed that the television was tuned in to the Food Network. I mean, not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with cooking shows, but seriously? Watching someone make pasta with cream sauce while you're running on the treadmill is strange. I suppose not more strange than the morning news programs telling us how fat we are, how we need to exercise more, stop eating so much, juxtaposed with a chef making alfredo and a cast of waif-thin television personalities drooling over it.

Today was probably the worst, with a pregnant Giada DeLorentis being scolding for choosing a 400 calorie salad with chicken on it over a 250 calorie salad with tofu. What IS that? It made me wonder how the heck hard it must be for someone recovering from an eating disorder when an underweight pregnant woman is publicly chastised for making a bad food choice.

But it's not just on television. As I started my time on the stationary bike today, 3 women were talking about how they'd gone all day just eating a 4-ounce container of lowfat yogurt, an apple, an egg, and a cup of tea. What the hell is that? Do we really think that's enough calories for a toddler let alone an active grown woman? I turned my iPod up really loud to tune them out.

NEDAwareness week

I'm going to do a series of posts this week for National Eating Disorder Awareness week.

There's a misconception that there's a choice involved in eating disorders, as though the addiction is somehow different and has simple solutions. It just isn't - it does as much damage to the body, life, and relationships of the person suffering from the disorder as any addiction would. It is ever so much more than a diet gone awry, as the news media would have you believe.

I cannot change anyone but myself, so I have made actions of change to think of food as nourishment and not something either angelic or demonic. To balance getting exercise that I enjoy, and enough sleep. I resolved to take care of myself, and took Harriet Brown's pledge. I don't always do this well - I found myself in some old thoughts today when Lauren ate a cupcake AND a piece of cake at church - but I am trying, if not just to model healthy behavior, for my girls and myself.

My little yogurt-covered urchin

...decided to put her Kashi Heart 2 Heart (like Honey Nut Cheerios, but made with organic ingredients) in my steel water bottle, which was empty. I dumped it out before refilling it, but it must have had just enough water to have about a half dozen pieces stick. After gym time, I took a big gulp of my very cold water that had been sitting in the car as I pulled out of the parking lot to find the super hydrated gelatinous hunks in my mouth. With nothing to spit it into, I had no choice but to swallow the bloated cereal.

Eww.

As I put her down for her nap, I realized she was singing something. As with all of Lindsay's songs, only about a third of the words were actually words, but I kept hearing "amigos something something friends" and realized she was singing:

Amigos amigos we friends of a hole
Amigos amigos we friends of a hole
We been [unintelligible]
We been [unintelligible] (banging together her fists}
Amigos amigos we friends of a hole

This was the song that the children's choir sang in church last week - "Amigos de Christo". We are actually friends of the Lord. The gesture in the second to last line is to "we've been restored". Oh...my.

What's new chez nous

Alec took the picture of Lauren on their trip to visit Tutu in Hawaii. Isn't it gorgeous?

If you're at all curious where Lauren sees herself at age 100, go check out my last post on Worst Mama. I have to say, I remember discussing the possibility of living to age 100 when I was about 6 and I truly thought I would. Are our children more realistic than we were? More accepting of the idea that we all die? Considering Lauren has five living great-grandparents, it certainly is a possibility she could live to see the triple digits.

I retrieved Shannon the cat who had been missing just shy of 2 weeks. Alec saw her come out from under our next door neighbor's porch (which is incidentally where Seamus was when he went missing), and tried to lure her out with some kibble. She's not an affectionate pet, which is to say she won't come when we call her and doesn't allow us to pick her up. Alec eventually gave up, and we ran some errands. When we got back, I laid on my stomach in front of the porch calling her until she came out. She let me pet her, and then as quickly and smoothly as I could, I snatched her up and brought her inside. She's looking a little haggard and thin, but otherwise she's her normal whiny self. Seamus, on the other hand, was less than thrilled to see her back and spent most of the night growling and spitting. Charming little beasties.

There's something wrong with the universe

I believe I saw every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Our television in Boston had 3 stations, so our viewing options were limited. Gates McFadden's character wasn't my favorite, but in one episode where comes to the conclusion that she isn't crazy and therefore there is something wrong with the universe.

It started with this story in yesterday's New York Times and the coverage on CNN about downer cows. You may remember I wrote about that a couple of weeks ago. I find it really disturbing this is being reported 3 weeks later as though it's news. This is the point I started yelling at the television. Tell us 3 weeks later after most of the meat has been eaten. There's a mention that what might be affecting the cows is bovine encephalopathy, because we wouldn't want to mention that less than 1% of the beef in this country is tested for mad cow disease. There's suspiciously no mention that the USDA has too much of an interest in the meat industry's profits.

"What is wrong with them?!" I shouted at no one in particular.

Alec looked sideways at me. "Isn't football season over? Didn't you give up yelling at the TV for Lent or something?"

It's not me. There's definitely something wrong with the universe...

Bites the dust

I have great friends. I have friends who are willing to show up before work on Friday with coffee to take apart my laptop. I have friends who leave their families (and wee baby) on a Sunday to install and uninstall drivers. But the upshot is that there is either a problem with my motherboard or my liquid crystal display. Either way, it has to go back to Dell to be fixed.

I have to say technical support has come a long way. That a few clicks yields a program so that the tech can check my settings and install drivers from his far eastern country was really just way cool. I also have to say that I've dealt with a lot of different company's support, and to not have "levels" - where the person who answers your request has a high knowledge of the inner workings of the system is refreshing.

Adjust it or ditch it?

Lauren never even tried to escape from the crib. Not a single time. I'd heard friends talk about the move from the crib to the bed when the kid escaped, but we did it simply when we had a bed to do it. We inherited my sister's furniture from when she was little the Thanksgiving after Lauren turned 2.

I belong to a Yahoo! Group of local moms. It's good for finding used baby and kid stuff, and getting recommendations for professional services. Last week when I saw someone posted a curb alert for a toddler bed, I e-mailed and snagged it. It's not fancy, but it'll do...and it saved me $50-75 for a bed I'd have to get rid of in a year.

We had talked about setting it up before Alec left, and I just couldn't deal with the thought of no sleep - you just don't know how they're going to react once they realize they can get out of bed whenever they want to. Lauren, in typical Lauren style didn't realize she could get out of it...so every morning she would say, "Come get me! I'm up!" the same way she did when she was in the crib.

This morning, I was surprised by a sharp cry instead of the usually sing-song babble out of Lindsay's room. When I opened her door, she was standing there looking a bit stunned, but otherwise OK.

I guess that transition's going to have to happen sooner than I thought.

Self portrait

Happy Friday

With Lauren away, things are quiet Chez Stoll. Lindsay asked this morning where Lauren is, and I told her "Lauren is visiting Tutu".

She asked, "She comin'?"

"She'll be back on Monday."

"Oh," she replied. "Ok."

Musings on a mushy day

Lauren's school was delayed 2 hours today because of the weather, which would've been relevant had Lauren gone to school today. She is en route with Alec to Hawaii to visit Tutu and very excited.

I helped out the Valentine's Day message chair yesterday photocopying about 7 pages of one-line messages from the parents to their kids and kids to teachers, staff, and administrators at the school. It took a very long time, partially because the school had no paper (seriously), and the PTO co-president had to go buy some. We didn't have a chance to collate the 450 copies, so I send along my contact information in case they needed my help today.

I was frankly kind of relieved to get out of the house. It's a gloomy, rainy day and I've been feeling a bit down. It was kind of nice to hang out and drink coffee, even with people I don't know very well.

We met at the co-president's house. Her youngest and the 2 of the chair's kids had no school because of the delayed opening. The co-president has a big fluffy dog, and Lindsay thought that it was funny to get kisses on her ears and neck. As we were leaving, when she saw the dog, she stuck her tongue out at her. The dog kissed her tongue, which was sort of cute and gross at the same time.

I'm debating terminating my RSS feed again. I noticed that my last post was ripped off by another blogger which really irked me since that post was sort of important to me. I penned a notice of copyright infringement to send off to Google, requesting that the post be taken down, but other than that I have to say it makes me want to put fewer of my words out there.

At peace

Polly Williams
Photo credit: Lauren Greenfield

When someone you love is sick, it's as though there are mysterious air pockets of grief. You're walking down the street thinking about gloves (on or off) or shoelaces (untied?) and then you suddenly realize you're crying. You assure yourself that nothing has changed between this minute and the last and things are okay. And they are until you stumble.

I learned today that Polly Williams, one of the women featured in Lauren Greenfield's documentary Thin, died on Friday. She was 33 years old. My condolences go out to her family and friends.

One of the realities of this terrible disease is that young people die because of it. I have watched the documentary more times than I can count, trying so desperately to understand. As though understanding would somehow cushion the blow or make it better. I thought Polly was tremendously brave to have opened this window into what must have been some of the darker days of her life. I pray that there is peace for you in the next life that eluded you in this one, Polly.

These are trying times

It's been a very very long weekend.

I'm corresponding secretary for the school PTO. This means I write all of the memos and email that go to the parents. Supporting the school is important to me and this position means I am a member of the executive board - it's about 10 hours per month worth of work. I feel this is just about the most time I can put in right now with Lindsay, my constant companion.

One of my friends chaired a fund-raiser over the weekend. This was a huge event, and she did an awesome job. I was sorry my schedule didn't permit me to be more involved, because it was just really cool. When she called that she needed someone to sell raffle tickets because another friend's kid was sick, I was happy to fill in. I was at the school for about an hour and a half on Friday afternoon.

On my way out, one of Lauren's teachers bought some raffle tickets. As I locked up the room, her primary teacher ran out to speak with me. I should've put together that this wasn't going to be a casual conversation.

It seems they'd caught Lauren pocketing beads. When confronted, she lied about it. I realized there had been several items that came home in the last week that didn't belong to her, she'd claimed she'd found on the bus ("Finders, keepers..."). When I mentioned an item, the teacher's eyes widened, and I knew we had a problem.

When I got home, I went through her toy box and found an item I knew belonged in the church nursery, and at least 5 that I suspected belonged to her classroom.

Really, I'm parenting far far over my head.

"She probably doesn't realize what she did was stealing..." assured Karen via IM.

Today, we returned the My Little Pony she'd taken from the church nursery. She cried and barely got out an "I'm sorry" through the barrage of snot and tears. Tomorrow, we have to go in and speak with her teacher.

A funny snippet from Lauren's report card

Does not consistently meet expectation in cutting accurately with scissors.

I may be going to Hell

Imagine, if you will, you are recounting a story about an event at a neighbor's house.

A neighbor whose wife's beliefs are much different than yours.

A neighbor whose wife is emphatic about some things you think are a little silly, perhaps.

In the middle of regaling a friend over after dinner Cardinal Zin which you purchased because it's Ash Wednesday and you felt that was a worthwhile $17.99 for good wine and irony, the apex of the story where you are, in fact, mocking her, there is a rap at the door and you stand, puzzled to answer it. Perhaps you are even pursing your lips a bit because it might be that Girl Scout and her mom whom you shooed away the other day for disturbing your dinner.

You answer the door, and there stood your neighbor with the toy your toddler left at his house. "I wanted to make sure you got it back in case it was being missed."

I think briefly of asking him in to enjoy a glass of wine with us, but instead snatch the book and thank him. "That was very thoughtful." I stammer. "I'll see you later!"

Oh yes. Yes. I return to the table. Sit. Have a large sip of wine.

My friend's laughter rings out. "Impeccable timing," says she. "You're blushing."

Strange little person

I had to show yesterday's morning outfit in more detail. Lindsay is wearing pink and white striped footie pajamas under her favorite knit hooded jumper, and the skirt belonging to Lauren's Snow White costume. Usually Dolly sits in the stroller, a cloth doll with very long yarn hair, but she was busy lying on the floor "eating" a wooden tomato.

More political processes

"Did you vote for the very best person?"

"Yes. That's my job as a citizen to vote for who I think is the very best person. Every votes for whomever they think is the very best person. Then the person with the most votes wins the primary. See, right now they are trying to narrow the voting to one candidate per party."

"And does the best person win?"

"Hopefully."

"Sometimes not?"

"Well see, everyone probably has a different idea about who the best person might be."

"Oh. I see."

"Daddy and I, for instance, didn't vote for the same person."

"Really?"

"Nope."

"Huh. How interesting."

Putting her vote in

No, not me. Not yet. I received strict instructions from Lauren, "Don't vote without me today!"

Lindsay slept in this morning, which was nice. I brought her downstairs still in her pajamas - a rare treat - to enjoy her breakfast of cereal, waffles, and graham crackers.

She's asked a few times, "Where's Daddy?"

I replied each time, "Daddy's at work."

About the fifth or so time after this exchange, she repeated. "Don't want Daddy work. Want Daddy huggle peace."

"Me too, Lindsay. Can Mommy give you a huggle?"

"Yes. Mommy huggles OK, san queue."

Lindsay at 20 months, February 2008

The other fifty percent

Last January, I posted about a wellness initiative in my school district. It appears I didn't regale the tale of hour long meetings every other week from March through June as I sat on the committee. The arguments over portion sizes, whether sugar-laden treats should be served at classroom parties, and whole wheat bread. In September, the school board reviewed our initiative and there were several noticeable changes. Where we'd suggested that birthdays and holiday parties have healthy snacks and non-food related treats (such as wearing a crown, being a "line-leader" in the primary school), they'd opted for a rule that said that one item with sugar as its first ingredient and/or with over 30% sugar content may be served at one party per month. The latest iteration changed our "all juice served must contain 100% fruit juice" to "beverages must contain at least 50% juice" which says to me that the outweighing factor is our district's contract with Snapple. I find that to be disheartening. When I saw that one day this week with the school lunch of macaroni and cheese, kids receive a free bag of Doritos chips I knew that the hours I'd spent on this so-called committee were wasted. I felt duped.

What's wrong with Doritos and donut holes? Nothing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them. There was one week where there were birthdays celebrated every day and so they had donut holes for snack 5 days in a row. I think that's problematic. There's also nothing wrong with Cheerios, but I didn't allow Lauren to buy lunch for a week after she admitted the 2 days she purchased lunch she'd bought Cheerios with strawberry milk and grape juice. Needless to say, she came home from school cranky and ravenous. When I read this article from Junkfood Science about school meals not containing enough calories, and this one from Cleaner Plate Club about downer cows finding their way into the ground beef of school lunch programs, I am truly overwhelmed with how bad this situation is beyond that little kids probably don't make the wisest nutritional choices for themselves.

If I don't agree with a store or chain's politics and policies, I won't shop there. I'm finding my $4 per week directed toward school lunches more and more difficult to part with since they aren't listening.

Bet you didn't know that came after K

A couple weeks ago, Lindsay started singing the alphabet. This is to say she started singing random letters, never in the same order. She always ends with "P". I have no insight as to why.

I noticed this morning that she's singing entire strings of letters in the correct order now. You undoubtedly have heard little kids slur together the string elemeno, as though it is its own letter. Lindsay sings that as "Elmo pee". She concludes the alphabet song "dubba ax why pee."

Big holes, revisited

Those of you who follow me over at Worst. Mama. Ever. will remember back in September there was a local construction site with a very large hole that Lauren thought would be a good place to bury people. Partly this is Lauren's belief that Alec and I made up that we bury dead people - she truly thinks that is absurd (though not as laugh out loud ridiculous as she thinks taking your shoes off at the airport is). Often she will ask if we can visit someone's grave and dig them up. She says it with such earnest, and almost looks hurt when I say it's not considered acceptable to disturb the grave of a dead person.

Today we passed the construction site where now the structure of a house stands. I pointed it out and said, "Hey, look - a house! Do you remember when it was just a hole back in the fall?"

"Yes." She looked thoughtful. "I was hoping they might put Shamu there."

Nice revisionist history, I thought. I replied, "Well, it was a big hole, but not big enough for a killer whale."

"Having Shamu here would be a whole lot cooler than just another house."

"I can't argue with that." I said.

The professor

I am taking an environmental science course this semester. It's a pretty boring course so far, I am sad to admit.

The professor is in his 50s and works for the state department of health. During a lecture about human population growth, he went on a rant about people entering the US illegally. I looked around the packed classroom, because for whatever reason, it is 75% full for this class, to note several of my classmates getting very irritated with him. Ironically, not the same 80% of my class who could've potentially emigrated from other places, but the younger white kids in my class seemed very irked. I realized in that moment that some people in my class were born in the 90s, which seemed even more jarring to me when I realized I was working with people who were born in the 80s...but whereas I just sat back and stopped taking notes when old white guy went on about the damn Canadians (not what he was actually saying), they were bothering to argue with him.