Big fat secrets

Strawberries excite me beyond reason. Yeeha.

Hi Milla.

It's Mom.

Auntie Gail, our WeightWatchers Tannie (and the author of the magnificent Big Fat Secrets), suggested last week that we identify a year-long weight/health goal.

All very well - I do this every year. And by the end of January, I've forgotten about it in the rush to scarf a packet of marshmallows.

But the kicker (more info on Gailie's blog, if you want it - tho' Mom knows you can't read just yet) is that you have to make the goal/s public.

Otherwise, you're not accountable.

Yikes.

And since we know no-one really reads Mom's stuff (except Yiayia and Dad - hi guys), and there's no way in hell I'm going to put my fat-fighting goal-setting on Bizcommunity, where I do get read, it's all on you, sunshine.

So...

Here goes...

1. The very first resolution I have ever made and kept, in 30 years, is this year's SLOW LIVING one. So I'm going to start with that, because I'm proud of it. In a serious attempt to manage my stress levels, enjoy my life more and feel calmer and less fraught, I have started to do everything in a more measured, more present, slower manner. Driving, talking, eating, thinking, walking, working. Alles. It works.

Mini goals: Leave the office at 5pm every day. Play on the floor with you. Read. Daydream. Have more empty time. Write in coffee shops. Lounge in bookstores.

2. Before I found out I was pregnant with you, you little bundle of yumminess, I was 0.5kg from my goal weight. I'd love to get back there. TO A SIZE 10. To my pretty jeans. I have 3.8kg to lose. Which, if you amortise it over the 8.5 weeks til your 1st birthday, translates into 470g a week. Now, for me, that's a lot of weight to lose in a week. Which means I have to stick to my 18 points and exercise.

Mini goals: No sugar at night (gives me horrible nightmares). Drink more water (the intention is 6 glasses, but I seldom manage more than 4). Cook more. Shop more. Eat less fat (read: red meat).

3. Right: exercise. I would love, by the end of 2012, to RUN A 10KM RACE. 'How the hell are you going to do that?' you ask, incredulous. I don't know. But I figure that if I walk with Mon once a week (5km) and walk/run with Sarah once a week (5km), I'll get there. I do need a plan though. (Note to self: Ask Gailie.)

Mini goals: Monica Mondays, Claire Tuesdays, Sarah Wednesdays, Sarah Thursdays. A 1km run by Dad's birthday. A 2km run by your birthday. A 5km run by Yiayia's birthday. 

So if we summarise it into a nice slogan - I love that shit - it's:

10 DEEP BREATHS. SIZE 10. AND 10 KILOMETRES.

That's quite enough of that, I think. Time to start my writing.

I love you, my bunny. May you be healthy, wealthy and wise.

Love Mom x

Eyes wide shut? Bungeeeee!

Yes, we really do bathe you in the kitchen sink, Kewpie.

Hi Milla.

It's Mom.

We've just been for our weekly walk with Monica and your best friend, Amber. You slept with your hands behind your head, like you were chilling on the beach - and one foot up in the air.

You do funny things like this all the time, and so here I am, motivated by some exercise, some hydration and a nice morning of fun writing for a favourite client, about to list some of your weirder weirdnesses...

1. You often sleep with your eyes open. Not slightly open. OPEN. Dad doesn't like it at all, and I understand why, because you look slightly possessed and more-than-slightly dead. Your eyes also wander off to opposite sides of your head, like a drunken fish. Oy. But I googled it and apparently it's normal and should stop by the time you're 18 months or so.

2. You arch your spine and lean back frantically when very happy or very cross. I usually try to cheer you up, if it's a cross arch, by yelling 'BUNGEEEE!', which makes you laugh. (I googled this one too and they say it's an age-appropriate way of expressing frustration.)

3. You are afraid of people wearing motorcycle helmets. We only discovered this on holiday and, at the time, wrote it off to grumpiness on the day. But I discussed it with my psychiatrist, the Remarkable Rykie, and she reckons you're carrying some anxiety from the robbery. Our friends the armed robbers wore dark masks (okay, beanies with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth) and it's possible that you'll always be fearful of people with covered faces.

This last one makes me enormously sad. But the other two are not serious and quite cute, so that's something.

May you always know that we love you - weirdnesses and foibles and idiosyncrasies included.

Love you.

Mom x

Milla, MasterChef and me.

Hi Milla.

It's Mom.

Now that you're almost 10 months old - and such a chubby bundle of naughty deliciousness - I've been thinking about the dark days of eight months ago, when I was drowning in the quicksand of post-natal depression and believed I would die there. My, how my life has changed since then.

I'm not going to go into all that now (and anyway, there's my looong article on it coming out in the March issue of Living & Loving magazine), but what I did realise recently was that MasterChef helped to save me. Seriously. It did.

In those scary days, I was afraid of everything. Getting up. Going to bed. Getting dressed. Not getting dressed. Staying home. Leaving the house. Even the television terrified me, because most series, shows and movies made me anxious or afraid, or both.

Enter, MasterChef Australia (Season 2): the one thing on TV that wasn't angsty. So, your Dad and I watched it every single night. Literally. For about 80 episodes. And I never once felt scared.

For this reason, I am very sentimental about MasterChef. It makes me feel safe. So you can imagine my delight when I cottoned on to the impending arrival of MasterChef USA. Dad and I diarised it, PVRed it, and settled down with brisket sarmies to watch.

But it was crap. CRAP. Like Dr Phil meets Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, set in the kitchen. Blech.

The judges are asshole-wannabes (except old Gordon Ramsay, who's uncharacteristically kind), the contestants are all emotive back-story (weeping wives, sad tales of woe, tears, snot...) and my psyche is nowhere near as fragile as it once was. I want more.

We watched Boardwalk Empire instead.

The reason I'm telling you this, angel child, is that there are things in life that will feel 'right' for you based on what you're going through at the time. And there'll be different things that you need at other times.

So try not to make rules about what you like and what you hate, because you may change your mind.

May you be open-minded. And a good cook.

I love you.

Mom x

My daughter, the con artist

Hi Milla.

It's Mom.

So, our holiday ends tomorrow, after four (mostly) relaxing weeks. Gogo and Grandpa John have left, and Dad and I have been Milla-wrangling solo for the last two days. We're exhausted.

You're a high-energy little bunny, my darling. And with all of the Gogo-'n-Gramps help we've gotten used to, Dad and I agree that sometimes even a two-man nappy-changing intervention can feel trying to gift-wrap a large, flailing octopus in damp tissue paper. Hell's bells.

I'm also feeling a little bit conned. 

'Cos you started out so easy. So accommodating. You lulled us into a false sense of security, got us used to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, made us complacent, and then... We went on our first big beach holiday.

In the good ol' days:

• You slept through from 8 weeks to about 8 months. (This ended on the first night of our vacation.)
• You ate everything we gave you. Enthusiastically. (This has been ebbing away, day by day.)
• You never got sick. (Okay, you don't get sick much. But your first big tummy bug/fever combo happened here.)
• You liked your pram. (Now you arch your back, cry and frantically try to escape whenever you see it.)
• You only cried when you were hungry, tired, or bumped your head. (Now you cry if we take away a manky piece of cucumber before you choke on it, if we put you in your pen, if we give you even the vaguest impression that we might want you to go to sleep, if we try to change you...)

Don't get me wrong. We love you more than ever. And every time I think you can't possibly get cuter, prettier, cleverer or friendlier, you do. But for the first time, I'm getting a sense of why they say parenting is hard. I wake up so tired I want to cry. Every day. Thank G-d for coffee.

On a galactic scale, you're still an easy baby:

• You like people. All people. You wave charmingly, smile generously and are not mama-vas.
• You eat fresh vegetables. Carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers. Even aubergine, beetroot and some others.
• You can entertain yourself for short periods of time.
• You're pretty good in restaurants, if you've eaten and slept and it isn't too hot.
• You love the water: bath, shower, pool, sea, lagoon, river. Anything. And you look so adorable wet.

So this isn't as much of a moany, whiny, poor-me post as it may seem. I'm just tired. And what's blogging for if not to have a receptacle for the stuff I feel bad actually verbalising?

I'm not a perfect mommy, I suppose. And you're superb, delicious, beautiful and smart - but not a perfect baby. Luckily for both of us, I don't think either exists. Which means we must be doing very well indeed.

I love you.

May you be happy, healthy, honest and able to laugh at yourself (and at others, just silently).

Love Mom x