Thursday, November 8, 2007

The Joys of Parenthood

Last night, I went to bed at 7:30pm. I actually went to put our 3 yr. old to bed and I was the one falling asleep. I woke up at 11:00pm and decided I wasn't tired anymore so I got up did the dishes and blogged for a while. Tonight, my wife went to bed at 7:30pm with our 6 yr. old. We usually have her lay in her own bed and we stay upstairs for a few minutes, my wife went in our room and when I came upstairs with our 3 yr. old at 8:00pm, my wife was fast asleep.

This has seemed to be a common trend in our family lately. One person is left up alone. Because my wife is pregnant that one person left up alone has usually been me. That would not be a horrible thing, but when left alone, I eat! Since being on Weight Watchers, I have done a great job of tracking and staying true to myself, but when I am up alone at 7:30pm it is very tempting to throw everything out the door and eat till my stomach's content.

Proudly, I can say I have not given in. Another trend happening in our family is that my wife is not eating dinner. Since her pregnancy, she has not been able to smell chicken of any kind and does not partake in dinner. In fact, she goes in a different room during dinner as not to catch a wiff of the food. I miss making chicken, but have survived on other foods so far. I have a lot of chicken in the freezer and the kids really like it too so I'll be braving it soon. Making dinner and doing the dishes has always been my duty when my wife has been pregnant, don't know why I thought number four would be any different.

Last night at my Weight Watcher meeting, one of the longtime members stopped me afterwards and asked if I'd been on plan since starting. To me, it was a dumb question because of course I've been on plan since starting temptations in life are just something that will continue and has to be made part of the plan. I politely responded that I've been doing well.

One of the "Guys on a Diet" starts a thread on the message board daily called the "Make a Better Choice!" thread. I contribute often to this discussion because I know I don't always make the best choice, but every time I make a bad choice I try my hardest to make the better choice next time. Today, my not-so-good choice was eating 5 mini doughnuts for a snack this morning. My boss, who happens to be on Weight Watchers, was celebrating her birthday and decided to bring in doughnuts and Kringles. I passed up the Kringles, but the doughnuts were calling me. The better choice I made was to go for a walk as soon as I consumed the doughnuts. It made me feel a little better knowing that I was trying to work them off right away.

2 comments:

kborn said...

Wow, teach Mike those cleaning & cooking habits! I did the dishes and cooked as I was sick the first months of my pregnancy!! I do remember the first months being hard not getting to see Mike as I was ALWAYS SLEEPING if I wasn't at work or sick. HOWEVER I'm STILL the one cooking and doing dishes at 39 weeks pregnant! It's good exercise (long walk to and from the dishwasher/ cabinets /stove /fridge). ... at least it gets me off my a** for a few minutes every day (every other day..).
Balancing the good and bad choices...I like it! On weight watchers and brining donuts? Tough call. OH, and on the meeting/catering food note--I always made sure there was fruit and water at every catering event for those who really wanted to make a choice other than the cookies or danish or cake we usually offered!
Maybe you can switch to just feeding the kids at 5 and having a small snack with them at the table and eating your larger meal after the kids are in bed (like you mentioned a few weeks ago).

Kathy said...

It is the real world and we don't always have control of the food we're offered...just what we do with it. I think winter evenings are just made for snacking. I always plan for an evening snack because of it. I like something warm to drink and popcorn and apples seem to be my favorite things right now.

I'll work on that cream cheese frosting thing...lol...but, I have to say that the oatmeal is pretty darn good without it.