Organize. That's how a Mom of four does it.

For those of you who do not already know, I am a Master Organizer. I actually have a bonafide, accredited degree to validate this point (Masters of Organizational Management).  Since I am not currently in the workforce (and even when I was no one seemed to care), I am not using this degree as it was originally intended; however, this does not mean these amazing (documented on a piece of paper with an embossed logo) skills go to waste.  Because I am a Master Organizer.  My husband likes to quote that old saying to me "A place for everything, and everything in its place."  I'm on the ball with that one, honey.  


You ask me where something goes, and I can tell you.  
You ask me where something is, and I always know right away where to look.  
I know where things belong.  
And I've got excel sheets galore:  all my logons and passwords to various accounts;  all my bill accounts with links to the payment page and a year by year spread of each months payments: each in a properly labeled file in a properly labeled folder. 
My father asked me the other day if I kept a car maintenance log-- and yes, Daddy, I do.  
I keep all my medical receipts in one manila envelope, all my tax receipts in another.
All business cards and other important phone numbers-- yup, I've got a place for them.
I have a responsibility chart for my children.  
I have a schedule of chores to be done on a daily/ weekly/ monthly basis- for me and the kids both.  Follow my chart, and you'll always keep a clean house. 
I have an allowance regimen for the children, based on their obedience and assistance around the house.   
I even stole an idea from a neighbor who keeps a weekly dinner schedule, and now I actually can shop for the items I need to create the meals I've pre-planned weekly.  
I have a chart on the wall to update each week with doctors appointments and extra-curricular events and birthday parties.  I used to just keep it on a calendar, but I've found that it's more manageable when the kids can see what they are expected to do daily.  


Other mothers often ask me (I doubt they care, but they ask me anyway) "how do you do it with four kids?"  I usually laugh and say something along the lines of "it's not as hard as you'd think" or "what's one more?"  (Someone once told me going from 2 to 3 was the hardest transition.  He only has three kids, so really, what does he know about going to four?  But he was right.  Three to four wasn't hard at all.  (So for anyone out there debating adding another...)  Or other mothers will see me balancing two kids at the library and offer to carry my books for me and I'll laugh and say "oh, this is nothing... I'm at half-effort today".  But the truth of the matter is, I can handle my four children because I'm a Master Organizer.  


And, as you can probably tell, I'm very proud of my Organizational skills.  What I need to work on is my follow-through.  My maintainability... My consistency... My utilization of these excellent organizational skills of mine.  

You ask me where something goes, and I can tell you. It just may never get there-- which is why there's typically an overflow of items to be put away "waiting to go upstairs", just hanging out on top of my tv cabinet, or on the dining room table-- or maybe having made it to the bottom stair for my next trip up. 

You ask me where something is, and I always know right away where to look.  It just may not be there... in which case, check the top of the tv cabinet, or the dining room table-- oh wait, it's probably on the stairs waiting to go up.

I know where things belong.  They just aren't always where they belong.

And I've got excel sheets galore:  but sometimes I'm just in too much of a hurry to update the file appropriately-- and sometimes that means a bill gets overpaid- which also sometimes means a bill gets skipped.  (Luckily, this doesn't happen too often.)

Yes, Daddy, I do keep a car maintenance log.  It's in the folder labeled "Cars", the file labeled "Dodge".  See?  One entry for "purchased: 8/21/2009: 11,000 miles"

I keep all my medical receipts in one manila envelope, all my tax receipts in another.  But sometimes I just stash all receipts together in my pretty wooden stationary box that I keep on my desk-- I'll sort them all out later.  All business cards and other important phone numbers-- yup, I've got a place for them-- that same pretty wooden stationary box.  I also keep my stationary in that, along with the address labels that we receive four times a week from various charities and anything else that I need to save but don't want to see cluttering my desk.

I have a responsibility chart for my children.  It still has a star for Kayton next to "Feed Tronga"-- our rabbit who died a good eight months ago.

I have a schedule of chores to be done on a daily/ weekly/ monthly basis- for me and the kids both.  Follow my chart, and you'll always keep a clean house. Don't follow the chart, and your house will look like, well, mine.  Except for the days I get really really motivated and run around like a mad woman checking things off the box until JMahl gets home and I sigh, throw myself on the couch and say "oh, honey, I'm so tired... I've been working so hard today-- and I got everything done except for folding the laundry... which I'll do tomorrow.  I PROMISE."

I even have an allowance regimen for the children, based on their obedience and assistance around the house.   Each child labeled and decorated a cup that we keep on the microwave next to a jar of coins.  The cups look pretty.  Every few months I call the children together and advise them that STARTING TODAY we are really going to be using these cups!  

As for the weekly dinner schedule--  Oh stuff it.  There's no way you can expect me to follow that chart on the day I ran around like crazy.  I'm exhausted, and the last thing I'm going to do is make lasagna when JMahl's not coming home til late and the kids prefer mac and cheese anyway!

So don't ever question my organization.  It's there.  It really is.  But the follow-through is another story.  I admit it.  And while my house is only spotless on a once-a-week basis (maybe), it's relatively clean by the time JMahl gets home from work most days.  And we seldom miss a payment or an appointment or a birthday party... so I'm not doing so badly in that area.  The area that I really hurt in is discipline.

I have come up with SO many different techniques to discipline my children-- and many of them work amazingly well-- when I use them.  My problem is, I forget.  For example, a few months ago I implemented a "One is a Warning; Two is Ten Minutes" (by ten minutes, I mean going to bed ten minutes earlier that night).  This worked amazingly well for the two older children.  It was gorgeous!  The moment a bit of a quibble broke out, all I had to say was ONE... and the kids would shush immediately.  I loved this.  The kids liked it (I wasn't yelling as much), JMahl liked it (I wasn't yelling and the kids were well-behaved).  It was a great technique.  And then, somehow, I just forgot about it.  Stopped doing it.  Don't really remember how or why-- but I do occasionally remember how well it worked and think that I need to start doing that again (like now).  Time outs on the tall green stool?  Work well for Kolbie, but am I consistent with it?  Nope-- because I forget.  It's much easier to yell.  

Rewarding kids is as important to me as discipline, but I have a tendency to waffle when it comes to using tv as a punishment or a reward.  Meaning grounding (Kayton usually) from tv if she's bad one day, then the next day telling her she can only watch tv after she's done this that and the other. Then JMahl will come home and ask has Kayton cleaned her room and, if not, why is she watching tv, and I respond with "because she's tired and I haven't reminded her to clean her room and don't punish her-- she didn't do anything wrong!" (while Kayton stares at the tv hoping we'll get distracted and forget about her- which does often happen).

Sometimes JMahl gets frustrated with me. "Consistency is key" is another of his favorite quotes (and as an only child, he is the parenting expert, of course).  But sometimes I get just plain out and out frustrated with my children and give them the "from now on, I'm not putting up with anything.  You will just get spanked!".  It's amazing that that threat still does anything, because when they next act up all I'm thinking is "do I really want to stop what I'm doing to wrestle with Mason for the next eight minutes trying to get him to stand still with his hands on the counter so I can spank him, all the while trying to not let Micah see what I'm doing (she's too young to understand) and trying to ignore Kolbie who is crying and begging 'Don't spank Mason, Mommy!  Mommies are supposed to be nice and hug, not spank!', and when ignoring her doesn't work, trying to hold Micah back with one foot while explaining to Kolbie over a screaming and hysterically begging and struggling Mason that Mommy is only doing this because she loves Mason and needs him to learn that hitting is bad." Geeze, I'm a proponent of spanking, and yet even I can see the confusion for a kid in that scenario. 

And, as mentioned, I also believe in the importance of rewarding children for good behavior-- thus the responsibility chart and associated allowance cups.  But again, I'll remember to reward them for a few days, maybe a week, and then they forget or I forget and they sit, with three our four nickels in them... waiting to be added to... until I need to give the kids milk money for lunch and empty the cups into my hand when they aren't looking.  Hey, in many countries chocolate milk is a luxury, and should, therefore, be considered a reward.

This lack of consistency is one of the things that frustrates JMahl most about my parenting techniques (or lack thereof-- hey, I never claimed to have a degree in Early Childhood Education)... but honestly, he doesn't have a lot of room to talk.  He'll get on a kick early one morning about how the kids need to make their beds before they go to school-- and then he'll forget about it (and, of course, I've forgotten about it) for about two weeks before walking into a bedroom early on a Tuesday morning and asking a confused child why they haven't made their bed-- you KNOW you're supposed to do it. Are you surprised that, no, they don't know this? 

But, you know, somehow we muddle through.  Somehow, we do have dinner on the table every night and our credit is good;  our kids wear clean clothes, take baths when it's obvious they need them, and seldom miss a sleepover.  Sure, I've had to throw together a last minute gift a few times, and we are notoriously late for church (which is why I gave a $150 donation to the church last year in order to win a "jump to the front of the childcare line for a year" pass... it expires next month.. ugh), and the windows only get washed when I'm looking for something to keep the kids busy.  But we do make it.  And my kids are pretty good kids.  No, not perfect.  And I'm sure they'd be much better (and less confused) were I to stick to a discipline/ reward plan for longer than a week... but they know right from wrong, and they are learning what is expected from them, even when I forget to tell them on a daily basis.  

But, most importantly, they get that one thing that takes no organization, no management, no remembering or consistency, that one thing that just happens twenty, thirty, forty times a day and slips out of my mouth, out of my arms, without thinking- regardless of how bad my day is or how high my dirty laundry pile is.  Regardless of how bad they've been or how many nickels are or aren't in their money cup.  They get Love. They get hugs and kisses and tucked into bed with prayers. They get congratulations for jobs well done and support for the challenges they face they next day (because, yes, Kayton, I know it's hard to like your brother sometimes. Believe me, I know.).  So if I only give them one thing consistently, thank goodness it's love.  Because if they didn't get that, they'd have no idea what to make of the rest of this mess.  

Yoga Bare

No, no... before you start wondering if this is "that" type of blog, I was not naked.  My husband insists that I could make quite a bit of money if this were that type of website, but I tell him we should revisit that subject at a later date when my body is back to its former stellar form (My memory is surely biased.)  And by "revisit this subject" I do not mean to imply that there will ever be such a website out there-- especially since my mother, brothers, and various other relatives out there may be reading this-- but sometimes with husbands I've learned that a "maybe later" (especially in the realm of husband-wife exercise) is a lot better received than a resounding "No!"... often followed by a "Who do you think I am? What type of woman do you think you married?  I'm your wife, not some girl you picked up at a college party."  The things we do for love (in this case, let them believe there's a slight chance out there that that particular fantasy might come true...)


So I was not naked, but both of my exercise buddies were.  (and are, as I type this).  Kolbie is going through a phase (if phase can be defined as going on two years now) in which she likes to be naked.  Oh, she'll put her clothes on, but slowly, throughout the morning, they start to come off. Then, after a few hours of me: "Go get dressed, Kolbie" and her: "No, Mommy.  I don't want clothes", she'll put a new outfit on, only to begin slowly shedding it over the next hour or so.  
This morning she started out in a cute little pink dress with purple stockings, but by the time we started our exercise, she had used the bathroom once (and who wants to put back on your stockings after taking them completely off to use the loo?) and within twelve seconds of exercise she discovered that her cute pink dress was getting in the way of her flexibility.  So off it came.
I wish I could strip naked and have increased flexibility, but I think that only works at her age...


Being the good mommy I am, and recognizing that you may be getting bored on day three of the same old exercises, I asked Kolbie what exercise she wanted to do.  Her answer:  eat cereal.  So that we did. Hey, breakfast is important.  By this time Micah had already eaten four breakfasts, so she was impatiently waiting for us.  So I distracted her by giving her breakfast number 5.  But she got distracted during the feeding, turned her head, and breakfast landed all over her pjs.  Which explains why she was naked.  She, at least, was wearing a diaper.


After Kolbie had eaten the standard four bites of her full bowl of cheerios (I will never learn), I repeated my question.  She actually thought about it for a second before opening the game cabinet (which is really the bottom half of the $1100 tv cabinet that my husband fell in love with and insisted on buying about six years ago before middle-class-peons such as ourselves could afford flat screen tvs.  Soon after the purchase, flat screen tvs became affordable, and I have since listened to JMahl complain constantly about why we can't get a wall-mounted flat screen for the living room- to which I reply "because you insisted on buying an $1100 tv cabinet and, by golly, I'm going to get my money's worth!)  and settling on, of all things, yoga.  And before you question how yoga fits in the bottom half of my tv cabinet, I will explain.


You may be already aware that our seven year old son, Mason, was born with bilateral clubfeet.  (Bilateral means Both).  We discovered this via ultrasound when I was 20 weeks pregnant.  If you've been through something similar, you will understand the immense pain, to which little else compares, of knowing that the child you are bringing into the world will be crippled.  All the doctors telling you that "this can be corrected" does not make up for the crushing fear and pain- and guilt- of knowing your child is hurt in this way. You know how when your baby is born you can't help but do the cliche "count fingers, count toes- Perfect!"?  Well, with Mason we didn't get to do this.  Within an hour of his birth (and due to his prematurity, he was whisked away after a quick peep to prove I had a son) his feet were in casts- starting the journey of his lifetime. Literally.


Fast forward through years of casting, minor surgery, bending, braces, more casting, more bending, etc., when Mason was five, we decided to go ahead and try some physical therapy.  We checked with our insurance company and found a local pediatrics PT clinic.  I'm going to name neither the clinic nor the PT, but suffice it to say, it was quite a waste of my 3 day a week, $20 copays.  But, before learning this, I was in the throes of "this is going to help him!" and when the PT suggested we try yoga, I went out and purchased Yoga Pretzels flash cards.  Now-- for the purposes of yoga, well, I guess that's more my fault than the fault of the cards.  But for a fun game with the kiddos- yoga pretzels is the best.  Basically, we take turns picking out brightly colored flashcards of fun yoga positions like "Warrior", "Lizard on a Rock", or "Plank", and having the other person do that position.  Kolbie loves this.  She has better flexibility, but I'm the only one of us that actually follows the step-by-step instructions on the back of the cards.  We intersperse the stretches with relaxing cards like "Elephant Breath" and "Like a Rainbow", and don't really get much exercise or stretching done.  But for the purposes of this blog, it counts! 
(If you prefer exercising with your spouse and don't have yoga cards, the Kama Sutra will work just as well.)


While Kolbie and I opened our minds and released our bodies according to the instructions on the card, Micah crawled around gleefully throwing the flashcards this way and that.  I think her exercise was called something like "scatter the cards as fast as you can before Mommy can get out of that position and pick them back up".  Made for quite the fun time... and messy living room.
Yup- -still some cards under the couch.


In conclusion, I did take some measurements this morning (two days down, I was optimistic), and I have lost 1/2 inch around my waist.  Or maybe I was sucking it in...


P.S.  Since the time of the waste-of-time PT, Mason has gone through major corrective surgery on both feet-- determined to be successful by Dr. Stephen Tuck of Shady Grove Orthopedics-- Strong recommendation!  -- and has been undergoing non-waste-of-time Physical Therapy with Mr. Kelly Sykes of Touchstone Therapy and Wellness.  If you're looking for a great PT, give him a call-- although, he has not yet recommended yoga as a cure for clubfoot.  

The morning after...

I was surprised to wake up this morning with a sore stomach.  Yes, I know.  You just realized that I only did 2.5 minutes of exercise (and that's 2(point)5,  not 25) minutes, and I am sore.  This should serve as your reminder about quality over quantity-- or at least give you more proof of just how out of shape I am.  So my stomach muscles were sore, but I consider this a good thing, since that means my 2.5 minutes were beneficial.  Yeah!  


It took me a while to get around to my exercises this morning.  Primarily because I was reading a relatively good book (L. Pitts, Jr. "Before I Forget"), about a man struggling with his diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's and trying to get things right with his family before he forgets (see where the title comes from?  such smart people write books.)  Alzheimer's, as most of you know, hits home for my family. Some people have cancer, others have diabetes and heart disease-- we have Alzheimer's.  And it's a B$#TCH, I tell you.  Less so for me than for my mother, her siblings, and my grandfather, but not easy at all.  To see a person you love forget that you love them... that they love you.  That they even know you.  It's a hard thing to watch, and I constantly remind my mother that she'd better be good to my father now.  She in turn reminds me of the same.  I believe JMahl (my husband) is taking notes and at some point down the road will sit down with tea and gold-rimmed reading glasses.  He will have grown out a full beard at this point because he thinks it makes him look distinguished.  He'll remove a thick binder of notes from his mahogany desk drawer and, speaking mostly to himself, say "ok, she made dinner every night, but no credit for experimental recipes.  Deduction for not ironing my shirts with starch the way I like them, but credit for me always having clean underwear.  Credit for sex and for children... deduction for four children total.... The nagging costs her some, but overall, she was a good wife... so....I think she's earned a moderate to nice Alzheimer's home... wait, not covered by medicare?  Well, she did constantly throw my socks in the big basket with all the kids socks which I told her not to do... so I can definitely justify putting her in gov't assisted care."


This reminds me, I need to start cleaning as soon as I'm done with this post...
But back to my exercise regime.  I finished the book and immediately took up position on the floor with the kids.  Micah was already giggling by this point; Kolbie just wanted to play Scrabble.  (By play, she means take turns reading the letters on the tiles and putting them haphazardly on the board-- where SHE wants them of course.)


First exercise was bum crunches.  Feet up on couch, Micah placed giggling on my belly, and I began to lift.  Reps of 14-11-15-5.  Because that's how many I could manage each time.  Sometimes because I was tired; sometimes because my baby was falling off.  50 total.


Next exercise was crunches.  Still on my back with my knees touching my chest, I lay Micah across my shins, holding onto my knees, and I did 30 crunches.  To do this exercise properly you have to either kiss the baby's head or stick out your tongue or yell boo or something to that effect every time your face approaches hers.  Which, if you are properly crunching, should happen.
That was fun.  But tiring.  I have a feeling I held my neck wrong and will probably have a sore neck in the morning.


Last floor exercise was a double whammy.  I placed Kolbie on my shins (where Micah was previously) and lifted Micah in my arms. I extended my legs out as far as I could (keep in mind, Kolbie is almost 30 lbs) while extending my arms over my head-- while holding Micah.  This one is fun for the two kids to kiss and head butt and yell boo at each other.  Keep in mind, though, the more excited the kids get about this exercise, the more likely the chance of A/ one of them falling and B/ you getting a mouth full of happy drool.  Be prepared to move quickly either way (in which case the drool will just drizzle down your cheek and neck) or suck it up.  Literally.  Not recommended.  
I can't remember how many of these I did- I think only 15.  I was tired.


And then, because we all know that you can only firm up so much-- sometimes you've got to get cardio involved, I decided to go for a jog. With Micah held longways, snuggled against my chest.  
Now, for some reason I've found that the house shakes less if you jog on your tippy toes.  So, for three minutes, I jogged around the downstairs, on tippy toes, holding Micah with both arms tightly against my chest.  Holding her this way accomplishes three things:  1/ it fulfills the unstated necessity to have a child involved in each exercise; 2/ it removes the risk of shaken-baby syndrome; and 3/ I was not wearing a bra.  
Now, to the third point, this may have not been ideal, since she was being held in breastfeed position with only a thin t-shirt separating her from the source of life's purpose (to her).  This meant that I was constantly pulling her little hands away from my shirt, which was moving upward at a miraculous speed, and trying to remove her nose from beneath my shirt- little pug nose that knows how to get where it needs to be-- all while jogging on tip-toes.  But I don't include THAT as part of this exercise- unless, of course, some hoity-tv doctor comes out and says that nursing while exercising will quadruple your rate of weight loss.  In which case, you heard it here first!  

Ten months out...

I am a 32 year old wife and mother to four children, ages 8, 7, 3, and 10 months. Five, if you count my 10 month old dog.  Six, if you count my 36 year old husband-- which I do at times.  I have a Masters in Management, a Bachelors in English, and career experience-- but these days I pretty much do nothing that I couldn't have done for $60k less straight out of high school. Heck, who am I kidding?  You don't even need to go to HS to have kids, do laundry, and make dinner.  Ahhh... one day... one day I'll be back in business suits and using big words (without having to define them)... 


But to the point of this blog:   I am tired of hearing people say (in an entirely complimentary way, of course) "You look great for having four kids!"  OR "Don't be too hard on yourself, you have had four kids, you know!"  (Yes, I know.  I was there for all four of them.)  So, I'm ready to work toward "looking great (period)".  Ie,  I want to hear someone say "There's no way you have four kids-- you look like a supermodel!"  Oh, not because I really want to be skinny.  I haven't been skinny since I hit puberty and my breasts decided to try for a marathon without any prep or warm-up before hand.  And not because my husband likes the supermodel thin body.  He actually prefers me with some cushion for the... baby's head to lay on.  No, I'm doing this because I can not afford to buy a whole new closet of larger sized clothes and, darn it!, I like (some of) the clothes I already own and can no longer fit into.  And because muffin tops just aren't cute, no matter how much cushion your husband is into.  


So I'm starting this blog as a motivator.  And as a record of my weight loss plan.  Which includes my kids (if you read the title of this blog, you've probably already figured that out.)  And no, I am not going to get rid of some of the kids, although that option does cross my mind on occasion.  


All right.  So, introductions complete, let's have at it.  My two oldest children go to school every day, therefore they are mostly exempt from the activities that will be discussed on this blog.  It is, therefore, my 3 year old and my 10 month old that have the luck to be used in place of a medicine ball.  And let's start off the honesty here by saying they love it!  Heck, what kid doesn't like being tossed around by his/ her mom?  (unless the tossing lands them into a wall, but I've learned my lesson since then)


And I do need to insert in here a quick comment-- after my second child (my only son) was born, I was at a great weight.  Probably my best/ healthiest ever.  So it's only fitting that my two youngest children get used as barbells, since they are to blame for the current state of my body.  
And use them as barbells.. and medicine balls... and hand weights I will indeed.  And they'll love it. They'd better.


Another quick comment before I start giving stats:  I'm too cheap to go to a gym that offers childcare, I don't use strollers-- besides the price of a double stroller, I can't go for a walk without my dog (feel guilty about that) and I can't manage a stroller and a leash, and it's often too cold, snowy, wet to take two kids out-- so walking is out.  I don't have an indoor gym system, other than a bike that annoys me, and while I was persuaded to buy a pilates video from tv once, I can't do that (or yoga) without being climbed on by one or more of the kids... which leads me to my current exercise plan called 
"Who needs a medicine ball when you have a baby?".  Also known as "medicine baby" and "baby ball" and "who needs a baby?" and, by 8pm, "who needs medication right about now?".


This blog is going to keep track of my measurements, and I'm going to describe just what I did each day in the form of exercise (with my kiddos).  
Please don't expect results and don't swear by this plan until we see results.
And I will be honest.  To prove how honest, I'm going to post a naked picture of myself right now, and again in six months.  Just joking.  That would violate my terms with Google Blogger.  But I did take a very unflattering underwear picture that I will hold in reserve until we have an "after" picture to compare it to.


But, to prove my honesty, I have taken my measurements as of 9:30 this morning.  Ten months out from baby #4.  


32 years old
5 feet 8 inches tall
167 pounds naked


waist 33"
hips 42"
thigh (just one) 24"
chest (under the breasts) 32"
chest (over the breast/ under arms) 37.5"
breasts (breast-feeding breasts) 41"
upper arm 12"
around bum 43"


Now, some could argue that those are perfect hourglass figures, but when I'm still trying to squeeze into a size 8/10, that hourglass gets a little bumpy.


After taking all those measurements (nothing motivates you and depresses you at the same time like taking your measurements), I lie down on the floor with the kiddos-- one hand holding my 50lb tension weight (our 10 month old black lab puppy, also known as "Dugan") who thought this was daddy-dog wrestle time-- and started my exercise regimen for today:


30 leg lifts-- flat on back, with 3 year old (28lb) child sitting on my feet and hugging my knees, I extended my legs out as far as I could, then brought them back into my chest.  I ended this exercise by flipping her upside down over my head and onto my couch.  From here on out, we'll refer to 28lb, 3yr old weight as "Kolbie".  She wanted me to do more, but I physically could not. 


Then, while holding Kolbie in the same position, legs partially extended (since that's all I could manage), I did 10 presses with my 10 month old, 16lb weight, who we will refer to as "Micah".  I would have done more, but she started to squirm.  


Last exercise of the day was to schooch on over to the couch, put my feet on it, Micah on my belly, and do 50 bum-lifts.  I actually did 30, then took a break for a few seconds, then 18 more.  Then two more.  Micah loved that.  She continued to bounce up and down on my belly as I gasped on the floor.  


Keep in mind that these were all done with one hand holding Dugan back from the party.  So that's day one of this agenda and post one of this blog. We'll try to make it to 2-2 tomorrow!