I'm sorry, Drew. Much ~ma to your mother and the rest of your family.

The only time I ever lost significant weight was when I went seriously low carb. That leveled off and started creeping back up when I'd just about reached my goal weight. Then Mom got the cancer and I just ignored diet issues for a while. Over those 18 months my weight just went back to where it had started. After she died I essentially stopped eating for three months. Coffee in the morning, diet coke during the day, some fruit and cheese in the evening because by then I usually had the shakes. My weight didn't budge.

And throughout this whole thing I was walking about 3 miles a day, 4 days a week.

Anyway, after Mom died I had a minor epiphany. I was 38 at the time, and for my entire life Mom had been overweight and on a diet. Low fat everything. No dessert or other sugary food unless she could justify it because it was a holiday and she had to make it for everyone else, or because of something like she'd helped get funding for a battered women's shelter and deserved a treat (because just being a decent human being in general didn't justify eating tasty things, evidently). When she died, after a 100+ lb chemo-driven weight loss, she was still overweight.

I realized I didn't want to spend the rest of my life on a diet. I'm currently overweight. If I go on a diet I may have a few thinner months here and there, but overall I'll still be overweight. While living on donuts and fried chicken isn't healthy it's not so much because of what's there as it is because of what isn't there. I plan to spend the rest of my life eating good things. Yes to tasty salads and fruit and broiled chicken. But also yes to chocolate and butter and au gratin potatoes. My plate's contents don't have to meet anyone's standards but my own. And my standards are all about what the food has, not what it lacks (flavor and calories, respectively).

Since I had this epiphany, and started acting on it, I've had no significant change in the fit of my clothing. I'm running now, instead of walking, because it leaves me feeling awesome. It also leaves me feeling hungry. So I eat.

{{Drew}} Tons of~ma for you and your mom.

I lost a good amount of weight on South Beach, but then slowly gained it back. I'm now about twelve pounds over my lowest weight as an adult. My doctor says I should be between 100 and 110; I think there's no way on earth I could ever maintain a weight below 125. Just maintaining 145 takes a ton of work.

{{{Drew}}}

(((Sean)))

Drew, -ma for your mother.

The adorability convergence at the Zmayhem household last night was legendary. Matilda and Dylan are so cute my ovaries ache.

Matilda would jump with me but she was dubios about my lap. Dylan is the most mellow baby on the planet and those eyes of his are lethally cute.

{{Drew}} Strength and lots of ~ma for you and yours.

I was 20-30 pounds underweight until I got pregnant at 38. Never thought about it much and ignored the attempts by loved ones to fatten me up. Now I'm 50-60 pounds more than I would like to be. I don't seem to be able to comply with any rules based diet so I have resorted to eating healthy stuff, trying to exercise more, and avoiding the scale. My loved ones gave me more grief for being too thin than they do now. Of course then I would just ignore them while now I would cry.

So much ~ma to Drew and his mom. For healing, equilibrium, no events of any kind until he's back on land and can easily get back to his family, and anything else that ~ma can wish for.

Calli, that is a great epiphany and a great way to live, and you write about it so beautifully.

Buffista Baby F2F report:

Dylan came to visit. Matilda was surprised and intrigued to see him. She shared her toys with him. They had a lot to say. Food was involved. There was slounging and a rousing game of catch. They were pleased to behold each other and there was much glee.

Also enjoyed but not recorded: The 1-2-3-JUMP game with Cashmere, and Dylan's mellow and contented contemplation of Deb.

After he fell asleep, Matilda spent a lot of time elaborately tiptoing through the living room saying "SHHHH! Baby sleeping!" Except when she forgot, and started squealing with excitement over one thing or another. Fortunately, Dylan was too jet-lagged to rouse.

The tail end of the evening was slightly less successful. Dylan woke a few minutes before Jess and Ethan returned, too tired to cry properly but whimpering and snizzling most heart-wrenchingly. He was consolable, Matilda was concerned but not upset, his parents arrived (looking quite stylish) and bundled him up, and all was well until David left to drive them back to their hotel and Matilda realized that DADDY HAD LEFT WITH THAT OTHER BABY.

Cue forty minutes of hideous tantrum: roaring, crying so hard the tears were literally squirting off her face, pounding and kicking on the front door, snarling, "DADDY! DADDY!" in a horrid Exorcist!baby voice, and kicking me when I tried to comfort her (not thrashing, but deliberately, if ineffectually, kicking me in the shin, which earned her a prompt time out). She finally raged herself into a state of exhaustion and eventual coma.

I'm not holding a grudge or anything (I can remember a couple of late-toddler BELOVED PARENT IS GONE! panic meltdowns of my own, and how desolate they felt), but damn, that sucked like a chest wound.

Still, the earlier part of the evening was an unqualified success. And there are videos to come.

I had a dream that I was accused of murder. But it was weird -- within the dream, I knew the whole story, and who saw what and who actually killed the person and why, and why I was being framed, like it was a story I'd read or seen before. And so I kept running around trying to establish alibis at the times when I needed them, the person who needed to say he'd seen me just wouldn't, because it would incriminate him for something else. I woke up shaking.

(And I dislike Twinkies, for the record.)

Me too. Especially since they stopped using lard in the creme formula.

What?

Oreos, too. However, I find that I much prefer the Trader Joe's version of Oreos (Joe-Joes).

I would type more, but I am DEAD from the cuteness of Dylan and Matilda. DEAD.

I would type more, but I am DEAD from the cuteness of Dylan and Matilda. DEAD.

Tell me about it. Those are just killer.

Dammit, I'm going to be 41 in two weeks and my wee ones are well on their way to becoming adolescents-- I refuse to have my ovaries kick me that way.