The Fat Face of Tragedy

Recently while I was tapping away on the computer my small daughter came and tugged on my sleeve.
"Mama?"
"Mmm?"
"Mama I've been thinking about something for a while and I'm very, very sad."
"What's wrong sweetie?"
"I've been looking at my face in the mirror and it's really, really faaaaaat!"
The last word was a wail of despair.  Charlotte's never been remotely concerned about her weight or appearance before but she was clearly distraught and needed my full attention.  I turned to look fully at her and immediately started to laugh.

"It's not funny!" she shrieked, "It's a tragedy!"
"Honey," I soothed, "Honey Mama's laughing because you're looking at yourself in Mama's beauty mirror.  It's meant to make your face bigger.  Try this..."
And I flipped it over to the normal side.
She stared in disbelief for a moment and then her breath came out in a ha!
"Phew," she breathed, "It's still only a little bit fat.  That's okay!"

Do I look fat to you?

Daddy's Friends

Charlotte's pretty out there socially.  She's an extroverted little kid and she's not at all afraid of addressing adults.  Recently we had a visit from Charles' cousin James who is tall and solid like Charles.  He has dark hair like Charles.  He also wears glasses and has a beard.  Charlotte told him he looked a lot like her Daddy (despite the beard).

A few days later Big Jim came over to do weights and was greeted by our fearless little rod of solid will.  Big Jim is a lot like Charles too - same height, solid build, dark hair.  And like James, Big Jim has glasses and a  beard cropped in a similar way.  I came in at the tail end of that particular greeting to find Charlotte regarding Big Jim thoughtfully as he talked to her.
"I'm one of your Daddy's friends," he was explaining.
"Oh I know," she nodded, "You all look the same."

The kid's kind of right.  Charles seems to have a lot of friends who are tall, solid and have dark hair.  A number of them also come with glasses and facial hair.  To Charlotte they're all just slightly different versions of her Dad.  The real insult though came tonight when Daddy was hosting two friends (one who kinda looks like him and one not so much) to play Dystopian Wars.  As they set up Charlotte came out and took in the sight of them.

"Daddy, you have two friends?" she asked in disbelief.

Spot Training Doesn't Work. Apparently.

So today is day nine of the thirty sit-ups for thirty days challenge - except that so far there's only been one day where I only did 30 and that was because the Ridiculously Dominant Husband chose to bark at me while I did weights instead of sit-ups.  In fact, I've mostly been doing 35 or 40 and yesterday I even made it to 45.  The number of reps in a set are also getting higher and the time I need between sets is shorter.  60 seconds tops now.

Anyway, as a curious side note, I had no idea how important it is to have an intact core before you do weights but two things were blindingly obvious the moment I took the weights off the rack;

1.)  The sit-ups have been taking their toll; and
2.)  Trying to do a full weights workout with sore abs is up there with being drenched in honey and left on an anthill in the Texas sun*.

All that work must surely be doing something.  Luckily before I started the challenge I jumped onto the Calorie King website and signed up to keep track of everything (brillo suggestion from the sister-in-law Jen, more on that later).  Halfway through the week I noted that my pants were a little loose and starting to fall down a bit.  RDH scoffed and said spot training doesn't work, no way have I lost weight around the middle purely from doing sit-ups (and eating properly you bully).  Okey doke.  Let's see how we go at weigh in.  Which was today.  Two kilos down, very nice.  But the big surprise?  Seven centimetres off the hips and five off the waist.

Holy moly.  I knew my core was a bit sad after giving birth to the little Viking but I had no idea how badly it needed some whipping into shape.  I don't for a second think that I've lost a bunch of fat from around my middle - that will take longer, I'm sure.  But I do think that the sit-ups have been quite effective at tightening the muscles back up and pulling them back into place.  Might have to add in some push-ups and see if we can correct the T-rex situation.

*Seriously, I've got no idea where these analogies come from.  But reading them back they always  fit with how I felt at the time.

Uncle Chris gets Complimented

I've mentioned previously how Charlotte's Uncle Chris comes over once a week to do weights with Charles.  He comes straight from work and has to change into his workout clothes in the spare room.  We're a fairly open family so yesterday when Uncle Chris closed the door to get changed, Madam immediately tried to open it and go in.  Uncle Chris told her that he had to change and she should wait outside because he'd only be a minute.

"Don't worry," she smiled reassuringly, "I won't laugh."

Apparently The Apocalypse is here

Yesterday we came home to this;

Not sure what it is?  Want a closer look?  Okey doke;

Yup - we've been swarmed.  And then this morning we woke to this;

We're inside the "stay inside and don't even think about sending your kids to school" zone.  Clearly The Apocalyspe has begun.  Prepare for the rapture!

More seriously, my darling husband happens to be a bee enthusiast.  So before I could get my skates on and hit Bunnings for my own domestically-sized chemical flame thrower I was ordered to ring the ACT Beekeepers Association.  Admittedly it's costing us $50 to have the swarm removed but if I'd nuked them I probably would have been made to sleep on the couch (such is the love of our little apidaetian friends) for a month so it's kind of money well spent and it's way cheaper than calling a pest inspector.

For your information though;

1.)  Swarms are quite docile (the practice of wearing a "Bee Beard" relies on this) but they will act to protect the queen so no hosing them with water, chemicals, etc.

2.)  Most bees are not aggressive unless threatened so if they come near you or land on you, don't commence the slap dance, just hold still and wait for them to push off.  Remember - a sting might be painful for you but it's fatal to the bee.  It's a last resort type tactic.

Daddy's Just Better

Charlotte was pretty adamant tonight that Daddy should be the one to read her Fantastic Mr Fox.  Frustrated at the ongoing preference for Daddy's reading, I asked her why she wanted Daddy to do her night time reading all the time and not Mama.  She screwed her little face up and regarded me solemnly.

"Well Mama...don't take this the wrong way...it's just that Daddy's heaps fatter than you and that means he's heaps more comfy to cuddle."
Thanks kid.

Weight Training with the Ridiculously Dominant Husband

I recently wrote about my 30 a day for 30 days challenge and my husband’s insane assumption of the role of my very own Biggest Loser-style trainer.  What I neglected to mention is that he’s also been doing weight training with me*.  Charles is scary big and when he does weights he bulks up and gains strength fast.  I, on the other hand, apart from being lacking in the testosterone department which fuels such incredible muscle growth, have always been known as “T-Rex” because of my arms and not because they’re insanely cool or killer-like in nature.

I like to politely refer to them as “farm-grown”.  I can’t do a bunch of reps but I can swing 20 kilos of cement or dog food up onto my shoulder and walk it to wherever it needs to go and so far that’s worked for me.  Having kids was a bonus that improved my arm strength too.  You can’t have a mama-addicted toddler and not build arm strength.  But that’s a whole other kettle of fish compared to doing proper weights.

So apparently my weight training program is geared towards strength and not bulking.  Which means low reps with heavier weights.  Sucks to be me.  Charles informs me that the idea is to do a maximum of eight with enough weight that I can’t possibly do nine.  I’ll bet you can guess which side of the line he errs on for the sake of caution.

To give you some perspective, our weights bar weighs ten kilos.  Before kids I used to just bench press this.  When I started weights training recently, I started on 25 kilos which I could barely do.  Since I seem to have achieved a level we’ll call “coping”** with the 25 kilos weights, tonight Charles decided that it should be 30.  The unfairness of it made me want to throw a tantrum.  Realising that strength training will probably involve upping the weights almost every time I manage to “cope” made me want to go cry in the shower and go to bed.

So tonight as I approached number five I realised I was not just struggling for dignity – it was all out for survival because I could barely keep the wretched thing off my neck.  I nearly cried when I got to seven and there was no way I could do another.  I wasn’t even sure I could get the bar back on the rack.

Ridiculously Dominant Husband (RDH) barked at me and demanded that I finish the set.  He even offered to help me, slipping his hand under the middle of the bar.  I did not believe he was going to help me for one second and he didn’t.  It wobbled its way all the way down and back up to crash into place on the rack.  RDH informed me I had another set to go.

Twenty minutes later and it was all over.  RDH perused my record and pondered the possibility of further increases.  I would have brained him with one of the dumbbells if I’d been able to lift it. 

I then went inside to make dinner and brag on Facebook and discovered that I couldn’t wield enough strength to peel the carrots.  Nor could I type.  Not to worry, apparently I’m getting much stronger.

* "With me" implies that he does them too but I’m too weak, which means changing the weights over all the time, so he does his training with far tougher customers who are closer to his level like my brother-in-law Chris and our friend Big Jim.  Perhaps a more accurate way of describing it is that he does weight training at me.

** Not crying and pleading for mercy.