Long Time Gone

Sickpocalypse 2011 has officially ended.  I have been absent from the blogosphere for the last (eep!) two weeks due to a migraine headache that lasted more than a week, followed by a pretty violent stomach bug, a death in the family (we say goodbye to Uncle Bill on Wednesday), and me catching up on all of the housework I missed during the aforementioned events.

In Shrinking Mom news, last Tuesday I went into Weight Watchers, not anticipating a big loss.  I hadn't exercised much, and had been guzzling the 90 calorie cans of Coca-Cola like crazy (Coca-Cola helps my headaches a bit).  Remarkably, I lost weight!  I was down 2.2 pounds from the week before! 

So, for those keeping track, I'm 2.6 down from my when I recommitted to WW on 5/3, 21.8 down from my starting WW weight, and 56.2 down from my pregnancy high. 

My next three goals are:

• 25 pounds lost (from my starting WW weight), which is 3.2 pounds away!!
• lose 7 more pounds in the next 5 weeks (it's a new weight "decade" and I have 5 weeks left on my weight record card)
• my pre-baby weight (my weight at my 1st OB appointment in May 2009)

And in Growing Boy news, while I was incapacitated with the migraine from hell, he got a stomach virus, poor dude.  We did the BRAT diet for a few days, and of course he bounced back like a chunky little toddler does.

Some things that have worked for us in the last 2 weeks:

Spaghetti Night!  I used Marky Ramone's marinara sauce, which is a great substitute for homemade for us busy moms.  The ingredients are: tomatoes, tomato puree, basil, citric acid, salt, olive oil, onions, garlic, black pepper, and oregano.
We cut up one slice of peppered bacon into 1" pieces, and rendered it down.  Saute sliced baby portabello mushrooms, and then brown about a pound of 93% fat free ground beef, and then add about a jar of the marinara sauce. 

Boil a package of whole wheat fettucini and serve it up!  I find that for Bean, the wider noodles work best for him, since they're easier to grip.  We've been trying to encourage the use of utensils, but he's still pretty dependent on his hands. 

Snacktime tends to be rather hit or miss with us.  Like any human, Bean goes through phases.  Our go-to snack foods are: string cheese, raisins, bananas, clementines, and apples.  I recently found these marvelous little apples that are perfect for little hands.  I used to give him regular apples, but so much went wasted.  He likes already sliced ones, too, but those are rather pricey.  I got these little apples in a bag for $4, and there were about 15 or so apples in it.  If he has an apple for each snack (which he's been doing lately), that's a week of snacks for only four bucks!

And sadly, we will be heading to Dallas this week to bid farewell to the very last member of my family in the "grand" generation.  My great-uncle Bill passed in his sleep last week, a few days shy of his 90th birthday.  He was a fantastcally eccentric man, a brilliant engineer, and was the first person to expose me to "fancy" food. Bon Voyage, Uncle Bill!