Things not to say to a working mother (this is a working list and will grow for the rest of my life)

1. "Oh, it must be so hard to leave her [Ellis] with someone else."
2. "When you spend time with her isn't it so hard to take her back to daycare on Monday?"
3. "How do you do it all?"
4. "I can't imagine being a working mom."

To which I say, "Fuck you."

Uh, thought of a few more that have come my way:

5. "She must miss you so much."
6. "Aren't you afraid you're going to miss something?"
7. "Is Aaron ok with you working?"

To which I say, "Really? Are you really that stupid?"

Callous

Today I was called, in a very gentle way, "callous." It's not the first time I've heard this. The funny thing is, and I so deeply hate to admit this, but if you know me well then you know that I am actually the opposite of callous. I can become so easily enveloped in the grief of others I try to avoid situations that may result in high emotion. I stopped practicing psychotherapy for this reason and have moved back into business, a place I am so very comfortable. My best and most reliable defense mechanism has always been my "callousness." It may not work for other people and I've seen the looks  when I make a decision that others perceive as cold and uncaring, but it helps preserve me. I don't know how else to explain it.

This all came up because I am off to a funeral next week. I don't do funerals. If there is any place where you are guaranteed to experience high emotion, it's in a room full of folks who are mourning  someone they love. So today I was processing this with my friend and colleague and somehow it came up that I haven't been to a funeral since my tennis coach's young children were killed in a car accident. I was seventeen at the time. I had a lot of capacity to understand what was happening but not enough. Who has enough capacity to understand something like that. That was 16 years ago. I have missed every funeral since, always with good reason (I tell myself), but not really, not when it comes to relationships and honoring the good people who have passed on. It's not that I don't mourn. I do. I just prefer to do it privately.

I have a family now. My partner has requested that I attend his grandmother's funeral and of course I will go and I'm so happy to get to see his family. The anxiety about the funeral is rather formidable though so it's an interesting thing to work through. I can't help but wonder if attending the funeral of a 94-year-old woman who has brought us all together to celebrate her full and long life will help shift the idea of grief and mourning for me. It's good practice. This is not for or about me. I am there to watch and support and love and dance and drink beer (and chase Ellis since her ear surgery fixed her balance so perfectly).

I didn't use spell check so don't judge me but this blog is called The anti diet

I've been on a diet since I was about 10. I once asked my mom to send me to a fat camp. She snorted, then laughed and then the concern set in. I'm happy to report that after living in my body for 33 years, and doing every possible extreme eating plan ever created, I have reached a beautiful understanding with myself. It's truly life changing and I can't help but apologize to myself for all the torture and ridicule I put myself through all these years. I don't know if it's because of Ellis; if it's because I donated my body to my beautiful daughter for nine months, nine months plus if you count all this breast feeding we've been doing. I don't know, I think maybe it is because of her and because of her I was able to see my body as something other than flesh for vanity's sake. This body grew a human! I beautiful, brilliant, shining star human and it has fed her for almost two years and I'm sorry, but that is just plain ol' magic. It's magic and so whatever bullshit I was doing to my body at any given time, that's all gone for now. My body and I have an understanding and I truly have not felt this serene with myself ever in my life.

So let me tell you about the moment this all culminated for me. I was at home, catching up on Scandal, because I have a BFF who lives for that show and basically she said we can't be friends if I don't watch it, so I watch it and while I was watching I got to thinking, "You know Dorothy, for all the diets you've been on, you've never done weight watchers and that's (according to Jennifer Hudson) the most successful diet plan out there, because (according to Jennifer Hudson) it isn't a diet." And so I hopped on my lap top and I looked up weightwatchers.com and I thought, "Hmm, $2.99 a month....I don't know..." It's true. I will spend $2.99 on a lot of things but not weight watchers. So then I thought, "If I can figure out how to install a play kitchen I can figure out the science behind weight watchers. I'll just do my own weight watchers!" So I started researching and I read a lot of articles and a lot of studies and I figured it all out, I did. I figured it out and my body said, "Oh thank FUCKING God! It only took you 30+ years!" So here it is, if you're interested:

Metabolic set point. This is where the magic happens and this is what weight watchers talks about but doesn't talk about because the average person just wants to be skinny and needs to be told how and doesn't care about why. So in order to lose weight without feeling horrible and depressed, you have to reset your metabolic set point which takes about three to six months. You can't diet for three to six months as anyone who has been on a diet will tell you. It's too long, it requires too much deprevation and we are hard wired to want to eat so when you start monkeying with hard wiring (food, sex) bad things happen. So if you can't diet then what can you do? You learn what a damn portion size looks like (you can google this. They have pictures) and you eat that 5-6 times a day. You make good, healthy choices 80-85% of the time and you get off your ass and move. That's it. That's all you do. It takes time and it requires that you change your habits but it does not require that you feel clinically depressed because you can never, ever again have another piece of pizza and cold beer. After three - six months, your body wants less, aka, your metabolic set point has been changed and you will not gain the weight back. If you have more weight to lose, you make some more little adjustments for another three to six months. The trick is to never change anything drastically enough that your mind becomes tempted to sabotage. Baby steps people. It's beautiful for anyone who lives to eat and refuses to be a lab rat any longer.

I should qualify this by saying that I'm not trying to airbrush my sweet ass and win a women's fitness competition but I do want to look good naked and zip up my skinny jeans without a whole lot of upper body strength needed.

So that's what I've been doing for the last three weeks and I feel normal and happy and I've lost 4 pounds. Boom. This is awesome.

The Pink Elephant: Psychoimmunology

The Pink Elephant: Psychoimmunology: I wonder if anyone will read this blog with a boring, seemingly made up title like, "psychoimmunology." Alas, for the three of you...

Psychoimmunology

I wonder if anyone will read this blog with a boring, seemingly made up title like, "psychoimmunology." Alas, for the three of you that do, it's a real thing. It's pretty awesome and something we've probably known about on an intuitive level for forever but the field didn't get going until the mid 80's and now it's an actual branch of science. So, what is it? In a nutshell, it's how psychological states influence the function of the immune system. Anyway, I'm not going to get all nitty-gritty about the subject because it's almost ten, my child could wake any moment and honestly, I try to avoid talking about human biology as much as possible.

What I will say is that psychoimmunology studies have found something out, something that has changed my outlook on pretty much everything so I figured I better share this little tid bit. Before I do though, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that stress is bad for your body right? No, we've known that for awhile now and anyone who has been texting while driving and then looks up right before they're about to hit the car in front of them knows that stress creates an avalanche of chemical reactions in your body. Heart rate goes up, breath shortens, the stress hormone cortisol is released, etc. Now if we experience stress on a chronic basis it's even more obvious that it's taking a toll on our bodies. Right? We know this so what is our knee-jerk reaction? Cut out the stress. Which, hello? Is STRESSFUL. We live in 2013, we have jobs and kids and relationships and friends and family and bills and bad hair days and 15 pounds of pregnancy weight to lose still and dogs who don't come when you call them and people who still bug you after all these years and cars that break down and nails that break when you don't have access to a nail file for like 7 more hours. So, we tell ourselves that stress is bad and we should have less of it which in turns increases our stress but guess what I learned the other day...ready: When it comes to our bodies and how we experience stress, i.e., whether it takes a toll on us or not, STRESS IS NOT THE PROBLEM. Nope. OUR PERCEPTION OF THE STRESS IS THE PROBLEM.

I don't know about you but I find this very exciting and liberating because I was doing a piss poor job of eliminating stress from my life. I can however shift my thoughts about my stress. For example: Ellis has to get tubes in her ears. Perception 1: FUUUUUUUCK! This is the worst thing EVER. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Or Perception 2: What a fantastic opportunity for my sweet girl to not feel like her inner ears are being drawn and quartered. Thank God we live in 2013 where this procedure is safe and possible. Thank God her doctor didn't walk in stinking of Gin (I don't know, it could happen.). Thank God we found this out now, she's going to rock this!

Um, yea, this is totally working for me. I hope it totally works for you. Remember, perception is everything. 

Can you say, "ga-ross!"

Being sick sucks but do you know how god dang anxiety provoking it is to get sick when you have a child? Let me tell you, this is the stuff panic is made of. What if she wakes up from her nap? What if she has a restless night? How will I sooth her and get to the bathroom in time? What if, god forbid, she wants me to play with her?! Shit. What did I used to whine about when I was without child? Oh poor me, back to back Grey's Anatomy (not a good show to watch when you're sick by the way...oh god, it's colon cancer, etc.), uninterrupted, friends and suitors doting on me until I was well again. Able to take copious amounts of NyQuil without worrying that I'm poisoning my child. Seriously?! Now I tip toe to the bathroom as fast as I can and if I hear that initial cry I pray not that I will be cured, I pray she will roll over and go back to sleep. If that doesn't happen, dread, fear, powerlessness. It is not fun people and those are not immune boosting emotions let me tell you. So here I am, sick again. Don't get me started on why, that's another post. For now, can we all collectively pray she stays asleep and avoids getting what I have? Thanks friends. Cheers (clink goes my saltine).

The Pink Elephant: It's all going to be just fine

The Pink Elephant: It's all going to be just fine: We found out yesterday that Ellis is going to need to get tubes put in her ears. I know this may sound routine or not at all like a big deal...