N pees in the toilet!!!

This has to be in the top ten best moments in my life.

N peed in the toilet this morning! Just about 5 drops, but I heard it tinkle! They were like church bells in my ears.

So all the potty talk for a year has finally blossomed to 5 drops of pee. Yes, we celebrated, we applauded, we praised, we sang, we placed her on the altar of peedom.

And now I am worried, because I am changing her from day care in a week. This new one is down the block from us, we could walk there, so we save at least 30 minutes in the morning. But any major change like this could bring her back from the progress of 5 drops in the toilet. So I am back to being worried.

I think this is the turning point when you realize you no longer have a baby, you have a little girl.

And you should hear her sing "Bla Bla Black sheep," she says yassa instead of yes sir. So cute!

N and the pink He-Bunny

Last Wednesday I was taxi-ing down the runway with N, her DVD player and "Bunny," a pink he-bunny (? Gender issues ALREADY?) who gets the brunt of N's bossiness. The poor guy, who is already pink and must have low self-esteem because of it, gets dragged on the floor of the airport (yucky germs) then gets told in front of all the other waiting passengers that he is in time-out, because he did something "not nice." He also gets told to go to sleep, and in a not-so-nice voice, by N.

"Go to sweep, bunny!"

She informs me he has to go to the potty, then tells me he did poopoo.

"Bunny is poopoo! He has to go potty!"

Of course, she wipes him, and lays him back down.

N also put her Titi Ile in time-out. She was "not nice."

"Time out Titi! That was not nice, Titi!"

But I saw her look the other way and smile. The funny thing was Titi Ile stayed there, in time out.

Back in the airport:
"Where's Bunny, N?"

"I don't know! I lost him! He's hiding!"

Bunny is hiding in the stroller basket. Oh well. He doesn't get treated too well, but better him than me.

Such is the life with a 2 1/2 year old; avert disasters at all cost...

Of death, funerals, and the summer to come...

Amazing what changes in a week...

Last Wednesday, May 14th, at 6:30 am I found out my grandfather had passed away. My Abuelo who had Alzheimer's and was bed-ridden for 3 years. By 1:52 pm that same day, I was on a plane with N, her Bunny, and a DVD player.

Death is never easy for anyone. But this was a good death if there ever was one. His three children were there, all my sisters and brothers came, it was a beautifully simple service. There was closure for many of us. N distracted and brought joy to my mother, who was more affected than she admitted.

Funerals in Puerto Rico are a curious thing. You end up seeing everybody you mean to see when you visit but never have time to. It is a congregation of old people. Old people like to go to funerals. They see family they haven't seen in a while. They talk about their medical conditions with uninterested parties while in the same room with a dead body. They gossip. (You find out so many things!). They complain how cold it is in the room. And in the middle of all this, you realize this is the cycle of life: birth, procreation, grandchildren, old age, death. You become accustomed to the dead body in the same room with you, you accept it. You are sad, but you know he had a good complete life. It just becomes a body, a shell, and you quickly realize how empty of life a dead body feels. Funerals give you closure: you finally see the body go into the earth, say your final farewells, and close the chapter.

The sadness lingers, but it is a sadness of loss. I could tell you funny stories about my Abuelo. I could go on and on about the dead. But I belong to the world of the living and as such must celebrate life. That is my goal this summer. To celebrate life with A and N because when you are dead you can't enjoy the sun and feel the breeze in your hair...

Goodbye Abuelo! Have a good trip!

Mondays can be good

The good parts: I have gone all the way to 3 pm with only half a sandwich in my stomach and no hunger. I am now eating half a can of chicken breast and feel full. I now fit in clothes that fit me before the pregnancy, in Greece, circa March 2005. I realized that the mild and strong headaches I was getting last week and the week before were NOT due to hunger (or coffee withdrawal), but to very tight muscles in the neck area, so I have resumed going to the Chiropractor. I bought a new chiropractic pillow today to see if that helps with the headaches.

The bad parts: I skipped out on exercise today. I noticed the clothes, although they fit, don't fit the same due to a hanging sack of fat below my belly-button line. I have to continue to see the Chiropractor to get relief from the headaches and my insurance limit is fast approaching. The pillow cost $60 so it better be worth it! I noticed I have a very hard time controlling how much I eat in social situations such as restaurants (yesterday) and get-togethers at my house (Saturday). I had a rough night with very little sleep and wasn't able to work on my thesis as much as I hoped today.

I did have a good week after the last fill. I went about a day and a half of only true liquids, which is really the most I've gone. Thursday was A's b-day and we had a nice time celebrating it with our small family at home. It was very enjoyable! I was in such a good mood because I finally felt I have turned the corner. Yes, it helped that I tried on some clothes that just 2 weeks earlier did not fit. I've even started to take photos of myself (face only!) to try to see the progress.

I feel N is starting to bond a lot to me. I think it is because I am spending more time with her, we are talking more together, I am trying to have more patience, I am discipling her more, she is becoming more mature, etc. She has developed a strange phobia of monsters and dolphins and anything that looks strange to her. We've had the same lamp, a buddha-head lamp, on our landing since last year, and last week she became afraid of it. I explained to her it is buddha, so now every time she comes down the stairs she says "Good Morning, puta!". Which is incredibly cute, puta means whore in Spanish and it is also the Chinese pronunciation of Buddha. The other day she refused to get in the car because there was a dolphin inside. We are dealing with it by empowering her to take charge of her monsters. We tell her she must say "booo!" and the monsters get scared of her and leave.

If only I could learn to get rid of my demons the same way...

Happiness in a Syringe

I got my fill. 0.6 ccs for a total of 3.2 cc. And I got relief.

Imagine my surprise when I get on the scale at the Dr.'s and find I've lost 6 lbs in exactly 2 weeks. Especially when my scale at home wasn't registering any change. This is what happens when you buy a fancy looking scale that you think is good at Walmart, trying to save money. I got two weeks of frustration for nothing. Actually, I wonder how much more I pushed myself to do better BECAUSE I saw I wasn't losing.

I was also frustrated that after 2 fills, my lapband didn't seem to be working for me. I found out some interesting information about my particular model of LapBand. Mine is a third generation band. As the bands have progressed from their first design, the inflatable pillow that sits against the stomach and constricts has gotten wider with a larger "footprint". So previous models had a lower-volume higher-pressure system. Mine is higher-volume, lower-pressure. The wider and larger footprint prevents band slippage and erosion. It also means it needs more fills to find the right pressure that works. Whereas previous models were tweaked in about 3-4 fills, mine might need 8-12. That explains so much! Now I don't feel guilty because I'm eating more after 2 weeks of a fill. I don't feel like I am doing something wrong. It is actually the band. So now I am feeling that I AM doing things right, and that there IS light at the end of the tunnel.

Imagine my DELIGHT when I came home and was full with a cup of coffee. *GRIN* Every time I'm filled, I have to do 48 hours of liquids and 48 hours of mushy foods before going to solids. This time I'm having no problems whatsoever! YAY! Even seeing other people eat is not affecting me as much.

Also, I have a secret. Don't tell anyone, but I've actually walked/jogged TWICE in one week. Shhh! I don't want to hear about it. I'm just going to do it quietly and without much fuss. SO DON'T MAKE A BIG DEAL ABOUT IT!!!

anger + frustration = fill?

I need a fill like an addict needs a hit.

It is very hard to explain how I feel full now or how I know I'm eating too much. The feelings are now in my chest, in the upper part of my stomach. If I don't chew or take small enough bites, it hurts. A lot. And drinking water doesn't help the hurt. There's no way around it except chewing a lot and taking tiny bites. I know I'm eating too much if I want to eat more than half a cup of food for each meal. I'm starting to actually measure it now, and trying to keep a food diary. When you write every single thing you eat down, it's a shock at the end of the day. Even those days when you say, "oh! I've hardly eaten a thing...", if you were to be honest with yourself you might find you ate more than you admit. Eating one or two olives, taking a slice of cheese, even my very dear sugar-free popsicles (which I believe I am now addicted to, and I am not joking here) add up at the end of the day. Why do I have to take a slice of cheese? Why do I eat 7 or 8 olives? I should not be hungry at all.

I think part of it is I am still finding the right tightness for my band. And part of it is eating out of anxiety. Knowing I eat because I am anxious sometimes helps me control myself, and sometimes I realize it and keep eating anyway. Eating for me now is a very conscious act. I have to measure and chew each morsel, making a conscious decision whether to take the next bite or not. I don't want it to be this way, I want to just eat and enjoy and move on. No, I have to be conscious of everything, every little trigger that pushes me to eat one more bite when I shouldn't, and don't need it.

Some people ask me how much I have lost. Nothing. Zip. Except for the initial 14 lbs from being on a liquids only diet, nothing. So much sacrifice for nothing. I thought by now I would have lost 10 to 15 pounds more for sure. What angers me is their comments about how Sue or Joe got the bypass and lost 100 lbs right away. I am not Sue or Joe! I didn't want the gastric bypass! I wanted something healthier, not so extreme. Like I don't have enough pressure as it is, these people are annoying. They have no idea how hard I have worked to change my habits. I don't eat rice, I don't eat pasta, I don't eat potatoes except rarely. I eat salads now. I eat a fraction of what I used to. A FRACTION! And still, nothing. A and N eat normal food around me, dammit, I even cook it for them. Yes, I make rice and pasta and potatoes for them, yet I don't eat it. A serves himself three times sometimes, eats crap around me, hides muffins and chocolates and sweets from me, and yet I don't eat it. You would think seeing me go through what I have been through would motivate him to eat healthier, eat less, take care of himself for his health. If I die, he needs to take care of N, he needs to be healthy for that. He has no discipline, and it does affect me. Hiding it doesn't make it go away.

I have another fill scheduled for tomorrow. Maybe this will be the miracle fill. Maybe this one will work. Maybe?