catch-all – cranky pixels

Oh Look I’m Allergic To Not Eating Donuts*

*Or carbs. Whatever.

It’s almost a week into the Whole30 thing and I’m still chugging up the hill going I think I can, I think I can (actually it’s something closer to I think I…what? since I’m SUPER SPACEY right now) and when I got out of the shower this morning I noticed that I have a rash. Now you’re saying lady, you ALWAYS have rashes, and about this you are not wrong, but this is a NEW rash, a DIFFERENT rash, and thusly of course I consulted Doctor Google, who told me it’s a side effect of not having carbs.

Yes. I am allergic to being healthy.

There’s apparently not a ton of information about this online; the dude who wrote the blog post I linked to above started his own site, The Keto Rash, to help people identify it and find treatments (the simplest of which is to eat more carbs).

SO! Damned if I’m going to let the Whole30 get the better of me, so I’m going to try adding more potatoes to my diet (because mmmm, potatoes) and if that doesn’t work then apparently I will itch for the next 23 days.

And then on Day 24? I am having a donut.

But I Love My Junk Food

SO, I totally failed at Holidailies. I did ONE post. One post, in which I was all “Hey guys, totally doing this,” and then…nothing.

But that is the past. Who can even remember that far back? Now we are in the distant future of 2016, the year of flying cars and jetpacks and me, doing Whole30.

What is Whole30, you ask? I will tell you. It is ~~crazy torture~~ ~~a test of endurance~~ ~~relentless self-flagellation~~ a dietary reset of sorts, in which ~~test subjects~~ participants eschew ~~delicious~~ inflammatory foods such as dairy, grains, legumes and sugar. For 30 days.

Let me say that again: no bread. No pastries. No BUTTER. No party-sized bags of peanut M&Ms eaten by the light of the iPad when I should be sleeping. (Which…is possibly the reason I undertook this whole endeavor in the first place.)

So far, it’s actually going relatively well, fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc. (Well, except for the part where I couldn’t figure out breakfast on the first day and ended up a twitchy neurotic blood-sugar disaster. But, again: the past! Who remembers such things?) We’re cooking a ton, and our intake of greens has increased exponentially. We’re trying out new recipes, which is fun – my Pinterest account hasn’t seen this much action in months. And I have it on good authority that at some point I won’t feel like murdering someone for a donut. Win/win!

Chime in, y’all: have you done Whole30? How did it go for you?

Holidailies. I’m doing it. My friend over at mamazing inspired me, so I’m going to ~~steal~~ borrow her idea for an intro. Besides, it’s been so long since I’ve blogged here even I don’t remember who I am anymore.

So! Some things about me:

I like cats.
And sleep.
I used to be a lot smarter.
I write HTML & CSS for a living.
Coffee is good.
I really want another tattoo.

Back when my first kid was wee, I jumped on the mommyblog bandwagon. He’s almost ten now. TEN. This seems impossible. I’ve got a two year old now, too, so theoretically I could enact Project Mommyblog: The Sequel, but who has that kind of energy? Mostly I just want blog entries to appear of their own volition, using correct grammar and crediting themselves to me. This does not seem like too much to ask.

But this month, I will actually write them. Probably. As far as you know.

I Try Out Period Tracking Apps So You Don’t Have To

My smartphone is finally fulfilling its destiny.

I enjoy not having to remember things. It frees up valuable brain real estate for things like daydreaming about abandoned amusement park vacations and learning javascript. My phone keeps track of phone numbers, birthdays, my next meeting, the day’s weather, and how many steps I’ve taken. So why shouldn’t it track my menstrual cycle, too?

I’ll tell you why not: most period tracking apps SUCK. I can only assume the the predominance of flowers and the color pink means that they are aimed at a target market that is not me, and not just because I’m in my forties. I’m a designer. I cannot use an app that looks like a unicorn threw up all over it.

Happily, in the time between getting pregnant, having a baby, and finally getting my period back after a year and a half (thank you, breastfeeding), the selection for period tracking apps has expanded to include things that don’t make me cringe. Some of them don’t use pink at all!

I chose four free period tracking apps to try out; two are ad-supported but offer paid versions that are presumably ad-free.

(I have Things to Say, so this is going to be a long one.) Continue reading I Try Out Period Tracking Apps So You Don’t Have To

Parenting Fail: Weaning

When Ellison was 18 months old, we weaned. We did it cold turkey, and it worked beautifully. Sure, there were a couple of rough nights, but he got used it relatively quickly and painlessly and all was well.

So when I started really feeling done* with the whole nursing thing with Rory, I figured it would work pretty much the same way.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Excuse me. Ha.

At 17 months old, Rory was not ready to wean. She was nutritionally ready – she ate a TON, and rarely wanted to nurse during the day – but emotionally she needs to nurse. I figured this out after three nights of basically zero sleep, in which she screamed uncontrollably and wouldn’t let anyone touch her, all because I calmly and firmly told her we weren’t nursing anymore.

She also began refusing to nap during the day, and developed separation anxiety like crazy. According to Dr. Sears, this is a textbook example of how not to wean.

I’ve backed off on weaning for now. I’m hoping that once we get her settled back into a routine and feeling secure we can try weaning again.

*I’m very much a fan of nursing, but I’m also a fan of my own sanity, and the two seem to be at odds with each other. Seriously, though, you want to breastfeed into toddlerhood? More power to you!

Relocation: Complete

Ah, moving. That magical time when you look at all your belongings and say “How did I end up with so much crap?”

We got rid of so much stuff this time. Houses worth of stuff. More stuff than I thought we owned. And yet! We still have so much of it left! All in boxes! Including, apparently, my iPad charger, so clearly the situation is dire.

The actual relocation process was a comedy of errors: the moving truck that broke down, the elevator that of course stopped working right when loading the heavy stuff, the cat who freaked out in the carrier and peed all over everything. (Bright side: I finally got the new stroller I wanted! Well, used. On craigslist. But it’s super swank and doesn’t smell at all like cat pee.)

Yesterday I finally got out to the old place and did all the last-pass cleaning. I hate scrubbing down an empty house I used to love. It makes me feel so sad. I really thought that was going to be the place we stayed all through Ellison’s elementary school years – he’d be riding his bike around the neighborhood while Rory learned to walk and scooted after him on her tricycle. Now I’m having to shift gears back to being a city mom, all playdates and parks. I loved being a city mom when Ellison was little, and I’m sure I’ll love it again. It’s just different. Different, and not what I expected.

But now we’re officially moved. Done. And I can sit in our living room and watch the city lights at night through our floor to ceiling windows, and it seems like maybe this isn’t so bad.

Now if I could just find the box where I packed the baby…

Muscle Amnesia

Oh the things you forget.

First up: babies? Messy. There’s cradle cap and baby acne and spit up and everything to do with diapers – not to mention whatever things exist in neck folds (seriously, don’t look in there). You think you remember diapers, at least, and how many of them can require changing in the space of, say, one hour. You are wrong.

Sleep dep: harsh. Again, you think you remember, and you think you can maybe do better this time. You are mistaken on both counts. (Fun fact: posting on Facebook about how tired you are at roughly three days post-partum does not elicit the expected sympathetic noises from other moms, but rather a stream of one-ups rendered even more bewildering by the fact that you are so tired you actually literally can’t see straight.)

It takes time for the belly to disappear. I mean, you knew this, but for some reason you also expect to fit into your pre-preg jeans at 2 weeks pp, which: no.

Nursing: hurts. You remember this. What you don’t remember is that, in the first few weeks, when the baby latches it feels EXACTLY like she is clamping down with a mouthful of needles.

The other thing you have forgotten, maybe: it’s totally worth it.