You are here: Home / Archives for Christina
May 25, 2012

I’ve Got To Keep On Movin’

May 25, 2012 By

Up and down, up and down. My weight makes me feel like I’m on a see-saw sometimes.

After the epic win of seeing my weight dip ever-so-slightly under 160, it’s now inched back up to 161. I’d like to call it water weight, but I’m not sure that would be completely accurate.

Last week Aaron found out he was being laid off at the end of the month. After that news came crashing down on us, let’s just say there was more than a little self-medicating with food for both of us. And pretty much no exercising at all.

We’ve spent most of the last week and a half numb from disbelief, sitting on the couch each night watching TV and occasionally finding a pint of ice cream or a bag of chips in our hands. It wasn’t pretty.

But eating away my feelings won’t change anything, other than hurting myself. It can’t make a job appear for him, and it can’t pay the bills, so better to stop it entirely and focus on activities that CAN improve any area of our lives.

It was that mindset that sent me out for a run yesterday. I want to run a 5K again, so I pulled out my trusty Couch-to-5K app and laced up my running shoes. A few weeks ago I had tried week 4 again and found it was too much for me. So I went back to week 3 this time. It was still hard, but I did it, even though I felt lousy for having to go all the way back to week 3 when I had once run an entire 5K.

Our gym membership is up at the end of this month, which means I’ll no longer have access to the treadmill. Sucky timing, too, since I hate running in the heat and humidity. Yesterday was a reminder of that. How do you deal with the heat and humidity? Maybe I’ll go back to running at night, like I did two years ago.

I can’t let bad news and setbacks take me down. The BlogHer ’12 5K is in August and I want to run it. We’re also planning to visit a water park at some point this summer and I want to rock a bathing suit.

So I’ll continue on. Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride.

Filed Under: c25k, running Tagged With:


May 23, 2012

Brought To You By The Letter D (for Depressing)

May 23, 2012 By

No one likes to read bad news, and I don’t really like writing about depressing things. But my little family has had our fair share of setbacks over the past few years, and sadly another one popped up recently. I considered not writing about it, although of course it then wouldn’t leave my brain to let me write about anything else. So here it is, and I’m only letting myself feel down about it in this one post and nothing more. If I get mopey in a future post, feel free to tell me to snap out of it.

Aaron got the bad news last week that his company is cutting him loose at the end of this month. He was told that it has nothing to do with his work, and everything to do with the president of the company choosing to run on a cash system – so if there’s a lull in contracts, like at the moment, he lets people go so he doesn’t run a debt. It’s a small company that depends on government contracts, and even though they recently won several contracts that should be coming soon, the money hasn’t arrived for them yet.

Aside from the head of the company, the VP’s and the project managers and everyone else he works with would rather he not leave. He’s the only writer they have, and his leaving means that the documentation for their projects – including an enormous user guide needed for a government agency software project due soon – will fall to, uh, someone else. Probably a project manager who isn’t exactly the best fit for something like that and would rather not do it and won’t do as well at it.

But despite objections from everyone else, the company president is focused on cutting expenses, even if it means cutting out staff who are vital to the development of the project. Not the wisest move in my eyes, but what do I know about business?

There is still talk of having Aaron stay as a contractor, with varying hours available to him, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet. Either way, we know that his steady income and all of our health benefits are out the door on May 31. He’s already updated his resume and has started networking. We know from experience that job hunting is rarely a short endeavor.

He’s angry, of course. Angry that he’s done everything right, has gone above-and-beyond for the company and has been praised over and over for his efforts, and gets rewarded by being laid off. It’s no wonder that loyalty towards a company by employees has been steadily declining – when treated like that, how can you do anything but constantly wonder when your employer will decide you’re not worth it? Too often now, an employee is just a set of skills to be used and discarded, and not a real person with a life and family and a relationship with the company. Mutual respect is gone.

I’m upset that we’re losing our health insurance again and hoping it will only be a short lapse. Why this country should continue to tie a family’s health insurance to their employment is beyond me. When people worked at the same company for 30 years, it made some sense for health insurance to be something shared between employer and employee as a benefit.

Now it’s just a cruel joke – if you work for the right company, you can get great insurance. Switch employers and it’s a gamble if your insurance could be worse in coverage and/or cost more. Your health didn’t change, and your need for certain coverage didn’t change, but because your job changed, your benefits and the amount you pay can drastically change. Lose your job with no ability to pay COBRA, and you have no coverage at all. What kind of a screwed up system is this? Why should a person’s job with a specific company dictate what kind of health care they can receive?

Not to get too political with this, but how is this a stable system for supporting the health of the country? A single payer system would be far more stable. Even if you don’t agree with a single-payer system, then it’s time to stop including health insurance as part of employment compensation plans entirely, raise the take-home pay for everyone and cap premiums from the profit-heavy insurance companies.

Stepping down from my soapbox now and returning to us: it’s obvious we’re scared and angry and frustrated, but we’ll be OK. I have a job at the moment that I love, so we do have some income. Aaron will qualify for unemployment if needed and has a lot of people trying to help him find another position.

It sucks to take a big step back financially (again), but money is just money. We may not be able to do or buy as much, but it can’t take away our family, our friends, or our determination to succeed.

And moments like this piss me off enough to push us to succeed, just to spite those who set us back. The best revenge is success.

Filed Under: Aaron, daily life, fate laughing at me, money, politics, rant, the J-O-B


May 21, 2012

Mira’s Turning Five – Everybody Jump, Jump!

May 21, 2012 By

Had Mira actually followed directions, today would have been her birthday. Her due date was May 21, and I had hoped she’d be one of those rare babies born on her due date, continuing a family tradition of being born on the 21st of a month.

Instead, she decided to wait nearly a week to make her entrance so I could endure anxiety over another c-section (she was a VBAC, meaning I was required to go into labor without medical help) and enjoy one more week of being enormously pregnant and spending my nights in the recliner trying to find some small shred of comfort so I could sleep.

She was then born on Memorial Day weekend, ensuring she could never have a successful birthday party on her birthday, because everyone has plans for the holiday weekend. It wasn’t hard for the first few years – we invited only close friends and family to our house. But this year she’s turning five, and after all of the invites to her classmates parties at different party houses around the city, Mira wanted a special party of her own.

So even though she isn’t turning five until next Sunday, she had her big party this weekend at a bounce house facility. (Imagine a big warehouse filled with all sorts of inflatable things to bounce on and slide down.) This was our first adventure at having a party somewhere other than our house, and it went really well.

I had a lot of anxiety leading up to the party, most of which is due to my own issues with birthday parties. As a kid, I had just one party. I invited all of my class, planned out games and food, and wanted it to be a big, fun time. And then no one from my class showed up. The only other person close in age to me who was there was my best friend, who lived two doors down. I was heartbroken that no one in my class wanted to come to my party, and I’ve never had another non-family birthday party since. If it wasn’t for my best friend showing up, I might have given up on the idea of celebrating birthdays entirely.

Hours before Mira’s party, I started to feel that tightening in my chest. What if no one shows up? A few of her classmates had already RSVP’d that they weren’t coming, and several didn’t respond at all. We had three confirmed to attend, but I worried they’d back out at the last minute.

(PSA to all parents: please RSVP to any invites your kid receives. We had limited space and could have invited more kids if people would have responded to us.)

Thankfully, all three showed up, along with several kids from our close friends. We were well short of the 25 kid maximum for the party, but it was still a lot of fun.

Mira, of course, LOVED being the queen of the party.

No, Mira, they’re not ALL for you.

Sigh…my baby doesn’t need help opening her presents anymore.

Everyone bounced and jumped and played, even the adults. Everyone ate snacks and cupcakes. I’d like to hope that every child expended enough energy to sleep well that night. (You’re welcome, parents.) And like a good little hostess, Mira thanked everyone for coming and personally handed out the goodie bags at the end.

Overall I’d call it a success. Now if we could just get her to understand that she’s turning five, not sixteen.

Filed Under: growing up, memories, Mira


May 18, 2012

Walk With The Animals and HOOFit for Health

May 18, 2012 By

One perk of blogging is that I occasionally get advance notice of cool, local family programs and activities. Compared to all of the emails I receive for events in New York and California, I’m thrilled when local organizations find me.

Earlier this week I was invited to come out to the zoo for the kickoff of the HOOFit program, sponsored by OhioHealth and the Columbus Zoo. The idea is simple: we’re all looking for ways to keep our families healthy and fit, so why not incorporate fitness into activities we already do? The HOOFit program is a series of guided walks through the zoo this summer, where you’ll be joined by an OhioHealth doctor who will discuss common health issues and answer questions as you stroll and visit the animals.

The kickoff event was a lot of fun. Several local bloggers were invited to attend, along with the media and representatives of the zoo and OhioHealth. (And I was briefly interviewed for TV – yikes!!)

@cbusmom, social-media-maven Mikaela Hunt from NBC4, and me

And we got to see Jungle Jack Hanna up close and personal. While he’s a local celebrity, you may also know him from appearances on late night TV with his animal friends. (Or from his old Saturday morning TV show, long before most animal conservationists were on the media scene.)

Also? He just had double knee replacement! Understandably, he didn’t walk much with us.

There were a few animal guests in attendance, too, happy to pose for photos with their fans.

 Baby kangaroo! All together now: awwww.

I didn’t need anyone to tell me that going to the zoo is a workout. We have an annual pass, so we like to go to the zoo frequently. Anyone who has been to the Columbus Zoo will tell you it’s huge and involves a lot of walking. We rarely see all areas of the zoo in one trip, because it’s just too much to take in, and because Mira will eventually slow down and remind us, “Guys! I’m tired because I have LITTLE legs!”

She’s right – to start the walk we were all given a card showing the minimum number of steps you’d take going through each area of the zoo.

The guide breaks it down for small, medium, and large strides, proving the Mira’s little legs really do mean she meets her daily step requirement long before we do.

HOOFit was a great reminder that some of the everyday activities we do can actually be great for promoting family fitness, too. Ask my kids to go exercise, and they’ll probably groan and refuse to do it or lose interest in a few minutes. At the zoo, however, they’re taking thousands of steps as they laugh and play and learn about the animals. (And it’s a good excuse for me to get some activity in, too.) It’s like a health activity cloaked in fun. Sneaky, eh?

This guy preferred swimming to walking.

All participants in the guided walks are given a bracelet pedometer to track your steps through the zoo. (Children will receive shoelaces instead of a pedometer.) You can sign up on Facebook to attend one of the guided walks, or if you can’t make it on those dates, you can pick up a map/step chart at the zoo for your own solo walk. Strollers and people of all ages are welcome on the walks.

I’m already signed up for the next HOOFit walk on June 21 – it’ll be my birthday, but starting with a great walk with the zoo animals in the morning is pretty good way to celebrate, I think.

Anyone else want to join me?

Full disclosure: I was invited to this event by OhioHealth and the Columbus Zoo. I received a t-shirt and wrist pedometer while there, and a healthy snack bag at the end of the walk. All adult participants who come for the walks can receive a wrist pedometer as well.

Filed Under: healthy living, local fun


May 15, 2012

Setting Up A Token System

May 15, 2012 By

In the past week I’ve described the token system we use for chores and good behavior for the kids to three different people, so I thought why not share it with everyone? We don’t give an allowance weekly at this point because neither of our girls have a strong enough grasp of money, and because many of the things they want aren’t things at all but privileges that have little to no cost to us.

We reward Cordy and Mira for good behavior and for helping around the house with doubloons. The idea was originally given to us by one of Cordy’s therapists, suggesting a token system can work well for kids with high-functioning autism, as they can see a concrete reward for tasks they accomplish and then use those tokens to “purchase” the perks they want.

The idea for using doubloons came from Jake and the Neverland Pirates last fall. Cordy saw it on TV and loved how the pirates collected doubloons for solving problems throughout the show. At the same time, Cordy was obsessed with dressing as a pirate princess for Halloween. Aaron realized that would be the perfect token system, so he bought a big bag of plastic gold coins, grabbed a mug for each kid (from our renaissance festival days) and we started to plan the system.

I think they’re Greek coins instead of pirate doubloons. Eh, they don’t know the difference.

You can make the system as loose or rigid as you like. We’re somewhere in-between. There are daily tasks that they know they earn doubloons for – these are often tasks that they have trouble remembering to do, or are difficult things we want them to master.

For example, Cordy has trouble remembering to turn off her bedroom light each morning. She gets one doubloon for remembering to do it each morning. She also has to take a pill each morning, which she doesn’t like to do, so she gets a doubloon for doing that, too.

When the task can be done without reminder and without the need for a reward, we phase out the doubloon reward and find other routine tasks to reward for. They get doubloons for helping Aaron or I without complaining (like helping us load/unload the dishwasher or take out the recycling) and for assigned chores that they complete.

We also award them doubloons for good behavior. If they’re playing well together, or if they spontaneously do something helpful, they can get bonus doubloons. 

They keep their coins in the mugs and then use them to buy privileges. Some of the privileges they can choose from:

  • Extra 20 min on the computer/iPad – 1 coin
  • A treat of 1 piece of candy – 3 coins
  • Staying up an extra 30 min after normal bedtime – 5 coins
  • Getting fast food for dinner – 5 coins
  • A trip out to the zoo or another fun place (if we didn’t already plan for it & time allowing) – 10 coins

Of course, anything that Aaron or I decide to offer to them doesn’t cost anything. If we plan to go to the zoo one Saturday, they aren’t required to pay. If they want something that isn’t on our list, we can assign a doubloon value to it. Mira once wanted a Happy Napper toy, but she had no money. We set a value of 20 doubloons for it, and she saved her coins until she could cash them in to buy her toy.

We like using this system at the moment because the coins have no actual money value (other than the few dollars it cost to buy the bag of them), so they can use them for non-money privileges like extra computer time or staying up late. Many times these privileges are just as valuable to them as anything they could buy. When they’re older we can move to an allowance instead of tokens, but at this age it works very well.

The system works well because it is flexible and can be adapted for nearly any family. You can set your own guidelines on how tokens are earned and cashed in, and you can adjust the rewards and tasks that earn tokens as a child grows and masters new skills. It’s a fun system that lets kids earn their privileges and gives parents a chance to set non-monetary rewards for good behavior. Win-win.

Filed Under: Cordy, daily life, Mira, money