“George” visits, girl codes, fads, fashions and other reflections from a mom as she watches her daughter grow.

My daughter, a toddler, is learning words right now and she recently started saying, “Wow! Wow! Cool!”

Time warp… I’m 15, in 9th grade, and my best friend and I are goofy. We talk like “Valley Girls,” need ways to talk about our monthly friend in code, so we affectionately name him, “George.”

Why, “George?” I’m not exactly sure. Perhaps it was just the first goofy name we could think of. But, it had to be a guy because no female would ever be so cruel and demanding toward another female. We came up with other code names to identify various “George necessities”, such as, “hot dog” and “hamburger”.

We had conversations about who is coming to visit and what we are having for lunch, or we discuss meals we might be hungry for. We’d talk about when “George” is coming, how long he typically visits, whether he overstays his welcome and what his personality is like…if he is really nice or mean, if we barely see him, or if he won’t leave us alone. Code – It gave us a way to safely communicate in our own language and allowed us to connect and bond as females as we experienced life’s changes.

Ahhhh, the days gone by! When we were twitterpated about a boy, mortified because the teacher asked us WHY we needed the pass to go to the bathroom when “George” was visiting, when we tried to get the pass to go to the bathroom and went out of our way to wave at friends and boyfriends through the slim rectangular window in the classroom door while class was in session, when we got excited about school dances, when cell phones and texting didn’t exist and passing notes was cool, when we carried Esprit purses, wore K-Swiss shoes, talked in pig latin, and had our make-up in Kaboodles! We learned the words to every song on the radio and everyone knew the Roger Rabbit, The Butt, Cotton-eyed Joe, and swooned over NKOTB.  

Being a girl was so much fun and now that I’m a mom I get to see my own daughter eventually go through her own teenage years. It’s a long way off yet, but I look forward to seeing what her code words will be, what she will get excited or embarrassed about, what fashions will be all the rage, and what music and dancing she’ll enjoy. She’s only a year old now, but I’m sure that it will seem like it was just yesterday when the time finally comes.

What fun it will be fun to see what the future holds! Wow! Wow! Cool! 🙂

Chocolate pretzels, anyone??

(Eating Chocolate Pretzels as I compose)… It has yet again been a while since my last post.  I just put our little darling down for a nap (though she’s currently only playing in her crib), and I’ve got a moment to respond to some other people’s comments and to share my thoughts.

Regarding my pregnancy weight gain… before moving in with my parents to save money for building our house I weighed approximately 130 pounds.  After moving in with dear mom and dad and my mother’s wonderful home cooking and baking, I weighed 140 pounds.  This is when I got pregnant. 

After nine months of pregnancy, I had gained more than 50 pounds and felt like a whale, but really had few qualms about it because it was for pregnancy.  Yeah right…some of that statement is true, but the other part of my reality was that I also engaged in intense silent sreaming regularly in my closet as my clothes shrunk on what seemed like a daily basis.  There was an upside to this battle after delivery though, which I am quite happy to report, because for years it has been my fear as to whether or not my body would bounce back after pregnancy.

Delivery alone let me lose nearly 30 pounds!  Woohoo!!!  Then breast-feeding helped shed even more pounds and I got down to 150 pounds fairly fast, which was amazingto me.  It was the final weight loss of at least 20 more pounds that I struggled with.  I did home exercise and walked as much as possible.  My family played on the WiiFit for fun, which was actually quite fun! 

And…My loving husband even supported me by taking walks with the baby and I after work a couple times a week too , but I wasn’t really losing. 

My mother surpised my husband and I after we talked about it for weeks, and bought the P90x program.  We decided to share it with her and my father because we live so close.

Extreme Home Fitness…THEY ARE NOT KIDDING!

This program was INTENSE!   It’s supposed to transform your body in 90 days and it probably would have if we would have stuck with it, but after three weeks, we quit.  I think I mentioned this before, but maybe not…My husband had to go out of town for a few days for work and after he returned, we just didn’t feel up to resuming the workouts.  Isn’t that the way?!

While he was gone, I ate ice cream happily out of the container I purchased it in, while sitting on the couch, and at the end of that week after stopping our workout, I DROPPED five pounds!  Woohoo!!!  I jokingly swear it was the ice cream – heh, heh. 

I started working more hours at my job and the weight continued to drop on it’s own, without working out and without dieting.  The last time I checked, which was two weeks ago, I was THRILLED to find that I weighed 136.  What an amazing feeling!  Not trying and it was working! 

I’m sure that it was all due to the muscle that we built while on the P90x program in addition to how much busier I was kept by Aubrey because she had learned to walk!  I think this is God’s way of helping us mommies lose the weight!  🙂  And thank goodness for it because I can’t imagine having more energy left over for more p90x! 

 

We have been trying to get pregnant since my post about losing weight before getting pregnant, and at this point, we have had no luck.  I have continued to breast feed, though I’m presently weaning our daughter, and I think this is the reason we have not had success.  At this point though, I’m ok with waiting until God decides it’s time.  We will continue to try and enjoy the time that we have with just one baby because I’m SURE that two will be so much more of a handful!  A wonderful handful, of course, but still quite a handful!  My husband and I have talked about resuming our p90x workouts, but not sure if or when that may happen.  I will certainly keep you posted.

Thank you to the few who responded!  It’s a great feeling to know I’m not alone!  🙂  I love to hear about other womens’ progress or struggles as well!   Please keep sharing!  And let me know if anyone else out there has a husband interested in working out with them who wants to team up on the P90x program with my husband an I!  I think that would be fun to have some buddies!