Effed up body image: CANONICAL TEXTS

I have been thinking a lot lately about mental and physical health. It is a tricky thing to consciously lose weight when you have kids at home watching what you do, especially today when we are so much more sensitive to diet culture. When I grew up, weight was moral-- very openly. If you ate the right things, you could be the right person. Weight was a behavior, a proxy for health. And! the books I read in elementary and middle school confirmed diet culture/created it/reified it in a pretty horrifying way, as my recent eBay rabbit hole confirmed.

 1. Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade: I adored this book when I was a kid, and nothing in it seemed problematic to me. A re-read reveals IT WAS ALL PROBLEMATIC. And in addition to everything written on every page about Elsie, THE KIDS HITCH A RIDE TO THE MALL in an old man's truck and have to escape and this is just, like, a throwaway b-plot. IT IS A WILD RIDE

2. Blubber by Judy Blume: I mean. Ultimately this book was about exposing the cruelty of bullying, but also? The residual message is not necessarily anti-bullying or anti-fat-shaming. The skinny popular kids are never really punished and the privileged perspective of the bully is sort of... I don't know... reveled in.

3.The Cat Ate my Gymsuit: Yikes, you guys.  Marcie loses wight (after both of her parents tell her she's fat and she is negatively rewarded for her appearance at school), and even though she still has problems, MUCH IS SOLVED by weight loss. Her fatness defines her.

Dorothy read Nothing's Fair and WAS SHOCKED by it. Which is GREAT. We have made SO MUCH PROGRESS since I was a kid, but also! It has only been one generation. There is much more work to do.

September! Wake me up when it ends, etc.

 I HAVE BIG GOALS THIS MONTH.

1. I want to catch up on my 25 for 25 and figure out where I am with that. Am I still with that? WHAT HAPPENED TO MY GOALS?

2. After a weekend of wine and cocktails, I am doing a dry September.

(I am SO HAPPY, though, that my hormones work, and I can enjoy a drink or two when I want to and still sleep! It is a treat, really).

3. I am going to dial back in to healthy habits and focus on being in a calorie deficit and moving more aggressively toward my weight loss goal. 

Trigger warning: talking about weight loss even though I am straight sized woman:

I listened to a great podcast episode about why those last 10-ish pounds are so hard to lose, and the main takeaway is that we get sick of being in a deficit and start to relax habits without changing the diet mindset. For some people, that looks like letting small things slide (taking a bite here and there of kid food; adding coffee creamer without counting it toward daily macros; not paying attention to portion sizes-- these tiny things add up quickly in the course of a week); for others, it might be relaxing on the weekends in such an extreme way that our overall calorie deficit is eliminated. Either way, we can just get sick of the scarcity mindset that can be associated with eating less and never really feel like we've stopped dieting even though, calorie wise, we are actually eating at maintenance. To avoid this kind of burn out, we should be intentional about deficit phases AND maintenance instead of just chronically dieting.

This made SO much sense to me because I was doing BOTH THINGS but not really enjoying either one and also feeling like I wasn't meeting any fitness goals. So! For the last week, I have been very consciously not worrying about a calorie deficit and enjoying the heck out of it. (Two cocktails in one day at two different meals! EXCELLENT pizza and ice cream in Eau Claire, s'mores by the backyard fire, etc). 

But! I have also been prioritizing eating 30 grams of fiber and around 100 grams of protein every day, paying attention to sodium intake, and watching added sugar outside cocktails and intentional desserts. With the above Tito's and lemonade, for example, I had a walnut and lentil burger with no bun and a mixed green salad  (plus cheese curds because WISCONSIN).

4. Clean up Harry's room 

5. Figure out what we are doing with our bedroom situation. Losing the bunk beds in Harry's room? Letting Cooper move in there when Harry is not home?

6. JOG. I was just telling Elisabeth how annoying it is that Ben woke up after decades of not setting aside intentional time to exercise, exercising, laced up his running shoes, and started doing a 5K every day. But then I thought... why not join him? Not every day, certainly, but I am going to do it at least once a week in September with the goal of a Thanksgiving 5K and a New Year's Day one.

7. Level up in terms of my weighted vest and dumbbells.

8. Join a gym with Ben because WINTER IS COMING

9. Adjust to our fall rhythm before the end of the month. I have 2 huge lecture classes next semester that I need to prepare for, and I don't want to suddenly wake up in October with nothing done and current midterms to deal with-- you know???

August: What I Read

Fine, but not my faves

16.  The Call To Serve: The Life of an American President, George Herbert Walker Bush: A Visual Biography by John Meacham: This was definitely a coffee table book that we listened to in the car (only 3 hours long!), but we liked it a lot. **Audio

15. The PLAN: Manage Your Time Like a Lazy Genius by Kendra Adachi: This was really helpful to read before my September planning date with Jack

14. The Tenant by Freida McFadden: Delightfully awful. **2025

13. We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes: This was adorable. **Audio **2025

12. Sunny Side Up by Katie Sturino: This is SO CUTE and a good antidote to the usual diet culture pablum. **2025

11. With a Vengeance by Riley Sager: This is my least favorite Sager book ever, but also, it is an interesting Murder on the Orient Express kind of clever little experiment. Liked it, eventually.

10. Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson: Charming, but the plot was really far fetched. **2025

Getting Better

9. You Like it Darker by Stephen King: He is SO good at short stories. **Audio

8. How To Lose Your Mother by Erica Jong-Fast: This is terrific, and you should read it. **2025 

7. The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka: I loved this-- you should read it. **Audio

6.The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware: I didn't even know I had been waiting for this sequel, but I guess I WAS! **2025

BOTY maybes

5. Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley: I loved this story about an unconventional marriage -- the pandemic is a huge part of this book, so avoid it if this bothers you in novels **2025

4. Heartwood by Amity Gaige: This is a great read-- some suspense, great characters-- loved it. **2025

3. Audition by Katie Kitamura: WOW-- this book is great/disconcerting. The narrative just changes mid way through in a way that made me question the idea of performance and the roles all of us play in our lives that are dictated by circumstance. And my reading comprehension for a hot second there. Liked it a lot. **Booker prize longlist **2025

2. We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter: A new Karin Slaughter SERIES!!! AND there's no Sara Linton! Kathleen Early reads the audio book-- love her, too! **2025 **audio

1. The Compound by Aisling Rawle: I could not pout this down. Reality TV meets Lord of the Flies-- so good-- perfect pool read. **2025

STATS

BTM 16

Book books: 9

Kindle books 0

Audio books 7

2025 books: 12

BTY 128

Book books: 72

Kindle books: 3

Audio books: 53

2025 books: 76

I am going to miss this reading view

5 on a Friday: Things I Will Miss About Summer

 1. Late bedtimes. I love staying up late and sleeping in. Except I have been setting an alarm and practicing getting up early, even if all I do is lie in bed and watch TV or read a whole book before anyone else wakes up. It has been great to let Minnie play outside until late and tuck her in around 9, knowing she'll sleep until 7 or 7:30. Everyone else drifts off to be when they are ready-- it's a delight.

Read this one morning to prepare for my fall planning sesh with Jack and really liked the advice to notice and adjust. I am someone who gets too married to my plan and then feels bad when I have to deviate

2. Family dinners. We all eat together, and it is a chaotic delight. Well, not all every day because sometimes Ben is gone for work, and usually either Jack or Harry is working and has leftovers when they get home. But! No evening activities, so we are together in the kitchen eating the same (same-ish) food. It reminds me of the panny. We play rose-bud-thorn and pop (a category game where you have to name your favorite thing in the category but can't say the same thing as anyone else and accumulate letters if you do-- first person to spell pop loses), and I harken back to COVID when we went through 2 complete sets of Trivial Pursuit cards, plus an Office-themed version AND a Harry Potter-themed set-- all at family dinners. 

This fall, Cooper, Dorothy, Jack, and I are gone Mondays; Dorothy and Minnie and Cooper are occupied Tuesdays; Dorothy and Coop are out Wednesdays; Jack and Cooper are gone Thursdays. I see lots of dinner shifts in my future **eye roll**

3. POOL. SO much POOL.

4. Lazy afternoon adventures with no agenda

5. SUNSHINE. It is light when I walk Annabel in the morning and almost still light when we walk at night. Soon I will be driving the dive carpool at home at night and leaving my Mondays meetings in the dark and waking up without the sun. 

This summer has been an unqualified delight. The only thing that would have made it better is a family trip, but we have had to pivot to winter break for those since summer is our middle schoolers' busy season (and they BOTH got a beach trip with their extracurriculars this summer)

Cooper in the Pacific

Dorothy in the Atlantic

Minnie says her favorite summer memory is "Basically probably going to parks, and I can tell you one thing that's basically fun: sometimes I do make up, and sometimes I do a summer look and sometimes I do a fall look which is fall-y colors," so it's hard to top that, you know?

The dishwasher is coming?

 We bought a dishwasher and a fridge more than 3 weeks ago, and we are LOVING the fridge. But! The dishwasher was supposed to arrive and be installed 10 days ago. Something happened on delivery day (missing a hose?), and we STILL DO NOT HAVE IT. We have called a million times and didn't cancel the purchase because we like the completely no frills model we chose, and we were concerned that starting over at a different store would delay our delivery too long (LOL LOL LOL LOL). So. TODAY MIGHT BE THE DAY.

Speaking of annoying expenses!! Annabel's one-year well-check was SO EXPENSIVE. Five HUNDRED DOLLARS. What. And! She is getting spayed this quarter. Geez. Pets.

Also! Totally pointless back-to-school shopping for kids who need nothing

I also bought myself a little treat: 3 books I LOVED as a kid. I cannot wait to see how they have aged these past 37 years (I read these all in 5th-ish grade when I was 10-ish). Do I want to read them in the waning days of summer or as a back-to-school treat for myself?

Lest you feel too bad for Dorothy, she had a BLAST at a dance friend pool party at the other pool near our house

A few miles away, I was FREEZING and FULLY DRESSED poolside while Cooper and Minnie played until dark

Where I also ate my FAVORITE PIZZA. I am really going to miss summer.

But!! To get ready for FALL, Jack and I had a PSL date at Starbucks and did our SEPTEMBER CALENDARS! We both use a digital calendar as our main hub (google for me; Apple for him) and then do monthly/weekly/daily from there. We have a plan to plan (lol) each week on Saturday or Sunday and each month near the end of the previous month somewhere fun. BRING IT SENIOR YEAR!

These two went to their middle school open house, got their lockers to dump their stuff, and walked their schedules. They'r ready!

I AM READY. How about you?

ALL SCHEDULED **cue the angels singing**

 WE GOT THE DANCE SCHEDULE! 

Dorothy has 

• jazz company (already knew that because that team was posted early because they had a choreographer), 
• lyrical company, 
• commercial company (a blend of hip hop/ jazz/ ballet-- think music videos),
•  hip hop super group (the giant 40-person dance her studio does every year-- they do one for juniors and one for seniors and try to get most of the team in one or the other), 
• hip hop club (her one disappointment this season because literally ALL OF HER FRIENDS made the hip hop company*. I reminded her of 3 years ago when she didn't make this dance at all and how happy she  has been the last 2 seasons in the junior club (WITH HER FRIENDS, she pointed out)), 
• and tap club (she was in the company for this last year, but she had to take private lessons to keep up, and the studio only has 2 tap dances this year-- junior club and teen company, so I think this placement is just fine). 

Her studio is only doing large groups this year, which is a departure from how it usually goes (small groups as a sort of reward for hard work and improvement in addition to large groups), and it is the first year they are trying the commercial style-- a fun year ahead, IMO.

(I should note that I have zero dance talent and am beyond proud of Dorothy for working so hard to get so good at dance.)

I was less anxious about the teams themselves and more anxious about THE GD SCHEDULE because for jazz she has to also take ballet twice a week and a tech class, so I was unsure of how everything would fall into place. The only schedule bummer is that Tuesdays, all she has is a single tap class,** but SILVER LINING! Minnie can take an acro class at the same time!!! 

Minnie wanted to take jazz and ballet and musical theater, but there was just NO WAY IN THE WORLD to make any or all  or any combination of those drop offs and pick ups work with picking up Dorothy and Cooper and getting Cooper to campus, etc. SO. Acro class for Minnie so she can dance in the recital (preschool classes, which she has taken the past 2 years are combo classes, so you get 2 dances for 1 class-- when she ages up to beginning, it's one recital dance per class) AND I signed her up for gymnastics on Saturday mornings (such an advantage of diving and dance being low weekend commitment activities!).

*I think it is totally crappy that Dorothy is the only 12 year-old in her cohort to not make the HH company. BUT ALSO, not everyone can make every team, and maybe this is the most practical lesson to learn from dance life. When I was a kid, there were cuts and auditions with less concern for everyone's feelings, and I do remember not making things I really wanted (lead parts in middle school musicals even though I cannot sing or dance, the junior high poms team) and how awesome it felt to try out and make things I did want (every single play in high school, for example). So, like, disappointment is part of life, you know? She can step up and be a leader in the club this year, and it's going to be great. Also dance is a puzzle of ages as well, so if some 13 and 14 y/os are staying in the junior dance, then some 12 y/os don't fit. DO I wish it was ANOTHER 12 y/o who didn't make the cut so mine would be happier? MAYBE.

** The one class on Tuesdays thing is a pain in my ass. If we had seen a schedule BEFORE we filled out the audition survey, I would have NOT checked the box for tap auditions. But! It is such a bitter betty look to drop a team after placements and will absolutely read like Dorothy wanted to make the harder team and is doing a modified flounce. (I am team all junior teams, BTW because they compete on the SAME DAY at competitions and usually perform in the little kid recital. I would not love an extra day of competition and 2 dance recitals, you know??)

ANYWHO. NOW WE KNOW that 

Jack works 2 nights after school and plans to have drama and speech the other nights plus also HS diving team starting in November and possibly HS golf team this spring.

Cooper has diving 4 nights a week and Sundays, and we have lined up a carpool thank all that is good in this world

Dorothy needs to be at the dance studio Monday-Thursday but she has a middle school classmate and a neighbor to carpool with-- just need to send some texts. She might do some rec diving on Sundays, but probably not because dance costs one million dollars.

Minnie will take an acro class on Tuesdays and developmental gymnastics on Saturdays with lots of good class make up options for weekends we need to miss. I imagine she will play kindy soccer in the spring with school friends, and I hope to get her in swim lessons in late spring so she can join the Hawks swim team next summer. (the 8 and under crew needs to be able to swim a 25 un 1 minute-- Minnie's best time from this summer is 1:02, so she's got to drop time LOL).

Date night

Complete with dessert and drink on the way home

POOOOOOL

I am absolutely not buying this thing, you guys.

Artist at work

SO READY TO MAKE FALL PLAAAAAAAANS

Breaking the slide rules for sure

Ben threw a football over the little pool building into the water hoping Harry would have to get in and get in on a 50-degree night.

More POOOOOOOL

Beautiful after-dinner dog walk

 KINDERGARTEN ORIENTATION!!! 

We are in the FINAL! Week! of! SUMMER!!

Healthy Snacks and Sleep Cycles

Snacks:

 I am on the hunt for healthier sacks that Cooper especially will eat during the school year. I pick him up at 4:25 pm (**all the eye rolls**) and take him straight to diving. He gets home around 8 most nights and eats a big snacky meal. Most people would eat dinner then, but Cooper is a super selective eater, so he probably didn't like what we had for dinner.

He does not like cheese.

He does not love nuts or nut butter (but will occasionally put peanut butter on a bagel).

He loves cereal but has rejected Magic Spoon.

Loves pancakes and waffles; hates Kodiak Cakes.

I also have to assume that he ate approximately NOTHING at lunch because his meds make him not hungry. Also, he wakes up and eats a bunch of sugary cereal with chocolate milk and maybe a bagel with nothing on it-- so he is already running on empty.

AND! I need to be SUPER CHILL about what he's eating because I try really hard to never make food an issue. And in terms of Gretchen Rubin's tendencies, he is FOR SURE a rebel, so I have to frame things delicately. BUT ALSO he needs to eat more to stay on his growth curve and to maintain his mood.

We definitely practice the division of responsibility with food-- you can assume that if the food is on our house, we approve of it and the kids can eat it-- nothing is off limits. Sooooo that means I need to make sure to have lots of snacks that I feel fine about and that the kids like.

Things I am going to try:

Eggo protein waffles (maybe because they're Eggo he will like them?)-- might be a good add-on to breakfast

Drumroll donuts -- I feel like these might be good for lunch box and after school

Just Bare chicken nuggets: These would be good for that 8pm meal, plus maybe in the car on the way to diving if we could work out the temperature thing

Bear Fruit Rolls: Would be great for lunch and also to have in his dive bag for a quick (no-added) sugar hit instea dof/in addition to the fruit snacks he already likes (Motts).

Other subs I plan to make:

Fairlife Nutrition Plan chocolate shakes instead of Naked Juice smoothies. All he wanted for snack on the way to dive last year was a strawberry banana Naked Juice, a few packs of goldfish, and some applesauce pouches. This year, we are going to add the protein shake (and hopefully ease off the Naked Juice).

Whole grain Goldfish: Why not make this snack a little bit more nutritious? Also more fiber equals more satiety. (we are talking 2 grams instead of no grams, but still!) 

Apples: Applesauce pouches are great for the dive bag, but what about eating an ACTUAL APPLE on the way to practice? Mind-blowing, huh?

Any other snack ideas for me?

Sleep: 

Sometimes (like once or twice a month) I can't sleep. The nights I am going to have trouble, I can tell right away -- usually well before bed time. I just feel... jacked up. So I have been taking melatonin and sleeping on the couch on those nights, making sure I have a book, the TV remote, my glasses, and my book light. It's been... fine, actually. 

Most nights, (the other 29 or so a month) I sleep great. I take a pre-bed nap from like 9-11 on the couch with various kids and then go to bed and fall asleep instantly. It doesn't matter if I have had afternoon coffee (yes, I am back on the caffeine) or a glass or two of wine. I sleep great.

 Except for the nights I don't. The Calm app has been awesome for the rough nights-- it's so nice to notice where my mind wanders and sort of nudge it back to focusing on breath, which usually eventually works.

Anyway, I think it's a cycle of some sort, but I am still mostly loving my estrogen/progesterone combo, and I am still on the lowest possible dose, knowing that I can take more when if I ever need to.

What do you do when you can't sleep?

LOOKING SO REFRESHED THO