Little Mint Dress

By next week, my first son will be married.

Of course I am happy and excited, but I wouldn't be a mother if I didn't have mixed feelings. Twice, I have felt overwhelming feelings of sadness at the thought of not having him around anymore so I can kick his shoes out of the way as I walk down the hall past his doorway. I've lived more years with this son than I have with any other human being in my life. And I love him.

Of course I hope that he and his bride will be able to negotiate their marriage with less conflict than I could as a young person. Of course I hope they'll always have health insurance and food on the table, that their mortgage won't overwhelm them, that they'll keep sparkling and laughing as they go along and nothing will ever diminish that.

My main responsibility in this wedding is to pull off the luncheon beautifully. The bride's family has graciously not required me to wear beige nor keep my mouth shut, as the anecdote goes. So, of course, the luncheon and all its details have been much on my mind.

But, honestly, the thing that has taken up the most concern is the same thing that would occupy any normal female--will I fit into my dress?!

Months ago, I found the perfect dressy mint suit--mint being one of the operative colors in this gorgeous wedding, and the bride's mother having rightfully chosen coral for herself. I was perfectly happy with mint. I got the suit approved by the bride, which wasn't a bit hard, and the only problem with it was what size to get.

I know it's stupid to buy a dress for a wedding that doesn't fit you, no matter how far off in the future the wedding is. But, of course, my situation--as fate always seems to have it--was the exception.

When it was the optimum time to find a mint dress in the stores--early spring, I had recently been released from my doctors to do more exercise than merely walking. NOT doing more than walking--and over the holidays, no less--had put fifteen pounds on me. I was making good progress, and I still had, I reasoned, three-and-a-half months left.

So, I didn't want to buy a size fourteen or a sixteen, which would surely drown me by the time of the wedding. The sales clerk talked me into buying two sizes and bringing one back within the month, depending on the progress I was able to make.

After trying on both, I purchased a size twelve and a size ten and kept on working out and hoping for the best. I used to wear a size eight, so it wasn't THAT unreasonable.

After one month, I tried them on again. The twelve fit in the waist, but was getting too big for me in the wide neckline. (See, Dr. Neurologist? That dress has a wide neck, not me.) Not wanting to be spilling all of that out on my son's wedding day, I took back the twelve and kept the ten and continued to work out and hope for the best.

A few weeks ago, I added ten minutes of extra ab work a day to the opposite end of the day of my normal workouts. (A weight trainer suggested this to me fifteen years ago--funny that I never heeded his advice until now.)

One week ago, I realized that much of what I do in my ten minutes of just-abs is fluff. I downloaded some "Flatten Your Stomach" exercises and beefed it up. One web site I saw said something to the effect of, "Honestly, the best exercise you can do to rid yourself of unwanted belly fat is to do cardio." I hit the "pfflbt!" button with my lips and moved on. I have faithfully done several hundred calories worth of cardio daily for six months and still have unwanted belly fat. (As opposed to wanted belly fat. Which would be different.)

I now weigh less than I did last fall when I had to stop working out, but the mint suit is still tight around the middle. I haven't seen my waist since the moment I conceived the son getting married. I am convinced that I could get all the way down to Jillian Michaels arms and legs and lose my bustline altogether (no mean feat), and my waistline would still not budge.

I've switched down to "fat burner" workouts which take me 84 minutes instead of one hour to burn 900 calories. I'm now doing 20 extra minutes of ab work a night. I've trimmed down what I eat even further and added blueberries to my diet (I heard they dissolve belly fat). I've started doing leg lifts in the restroom at work. I'm trying on the mint suit several times a week. Do I seem desperate? Well, it's only because wearing that suit to that wedding is the ONLY OPTION I HAVE!

Yesterday at work, I got a couple of compliments on the dress I was wearing. "It's a ten," I told one friend. "And I wore a ten yesterday. And the day before. I can wear every ten I own now except the one I need to wear."

"Hmmm. It must be the way it's cut," she said.

"I think it's the way I'm cut," I said, miserably.

I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I rented out my mid-section to seven different human beings for nine-month stays. And played the part of the perfect hostess all the while, making sure each of them had every possible thing they could need packed in there with them.

Not that I can blame my babies, the youngest of whom is over three years old.

Maybe I can blame my parents, instead.

Me Wuv Cookie!

Cookies ought to be the perfect food.

Think about it. They come in a variety of flavors, shapes, colors, sizes, and textures. They are ready when you are. They don't need to be refrigerated. You can make them ahead and they last a good while. They are easily stored, and easy to transport. They contain a certain amount of energy. They taste better than anything.

If they hadn't already been invented, NASA would probably have invented them.

I've hardly met a cookie I didn't like.

The problem is, cookies unabashedly feature three dieters' no-no's: sugar, fat, and white flour. Not just one, but all three--together! With sugar's main role being to make you fat, white flour's main role being to add mega-calories (in the form of carbs!) with few nutritional compensations, and fat's main role being, well, to be fat, to the dieter, cookies spell doom.

It's a tragedy, really.

I keep thinking there should be a way for cookies to become a healthy choice. You can replace white flour with wheat flour, with some success, but the cookies are heavier and don't taste the same. You can use a sugar substitute with limited success, but, again, not the same. You still need some fat, too. I'm sorry, but diet cookies just don't do it for me.

It's not them, it's me.

Just as I was about to give up my cookies-are-the-perfect-food fantasy last time, my thoughts turned to another food--round, sweet, filling, and possessing some of cookies' best features. I mean, they come in a variety of flavors, shapes, colors, sizes, and textures. They are ready when you are. They don't always need to be refrigerated. They last a while. They are somewhat easily stored, and easy to transport. They contain a certain amount of energy.

Of course, I'm talking about nature's cookie--fruit. There are enough kinds of fruits that there ought to be a few favorite kinds for anyone.

This thought is a little depressing to cookie lovers like me, but, hey, it's a thought.

Which brings me to the following update: where a few months ago I could hardly bring myself to actually eat an orange although I don't mind the taste, now, I can't live without them.

We ran out of oranges for a few days, and it threw my eating off completely.

When I start my eating for the day with an orange, it sets the stage for healthy eating. I have an orange first, then my two boiled eggs and a tall glass of milk. This is enough to hold me for a while. Later, I have a small nut snack and then my lunch. However, when I don't have an orange, I have to start off with just eggs and milk, and, somehow, this isn't enough to eat. So, then, I'm looking around for something else. I can have my nuts early, but then I need my lunch early. I'm more tempted by the staff meeting treats, and I'm looking around for something else to fill me up.

Seriously. I told my husband (who does the grocery shopping) that I must have an orange a day now, and he looked at me like, "Who are you and what have you done with my wife?"

But the weight continues to slowly come off. Even my brother noticed!

That seems worth switching fruit for cookies, if anything is.

Good as New

Yesterday in church, the little girl sitting next to me showed me that right smack in the middle of the skirt of her Cinderella brand dress, a rosebud was missing.

It was a beautiful dress with a white satiny top and a light pink skirt, covered with a layer of tulle sprinkled with tiny sewn-on pink rosebuds.

Not because of any specific memory, but just on a hunch, I hunted through the cash part of my wallet and found the missing rosebud. It had apparently been there for two or three years, since her older sister last wore that dress.

I guess I have been using this wallet for years. The problem is that I too-seldom have the opportunity to get into the cash part!

To her delight, I showed my younger daughter the rosebud and promised to sew it back on when we got home.

This was a good thing, partly because that little girl was scheduled to be baptized later that evening. I whispered in her ear, "This is just like what happens when you are baptized and repent--the missing piece is found--has been there waiting for you all along--and things are made whole and well, good as new."

She smiled, and I smiled. It's great when events in life just snap together to give parents the perfect object lesson to support their teachings.

Got Your Back

Right now, as we speak (so to speak), I am not washing off the patio chairs. Yes, I know we're well into June, but in Utah, it just barely got warm. In fact, in today's paper was an article officially stating that we had the coldest May in 57 years.

I was amazed when I got the patio swept off and cleaned up in the hour I had before picking up the children from school. While on a roll, I planned to set out all twenty patio chairs and spray them down. I imagined my newly-released-for-summer children blissfully wiping down the chairs after I hosed them (wearing my fifties pearls and nylon stockings, I suppose).

It didn't turn out that way.

My husband, who had been working in the front yard the whole time I was sweeping up the patio, came around after I had set out half the chairs on the lawn, and told the kids to pick them up. What he was doing--spreading seed, fertilizer, and dirt on the lawns--was going to take precedence over what I was doing.

As sometimes happens, I think what I am doing is more important than what he is doing, and he thinks what he is doing is more important than what I am doing. But we've learned through trial and error and error and trial not to fight about it.

So I came in and good-naturedly plunged into the dirty work of reading the newspapers I hadn't gotten to and doing the Sudoku puzzles so the papers could be thrown away.

But it put me in mind of today's topic, which is marital teamwork. Not that I'm an expert on that subject, but, in several years of marriage, I have learned a thing. So now, while my husband sweats in the sun, I am doing the hard work of posting my next article.

Recently, two of our children had birthdays. Our son chose to have a birthday cake that would look like a computer motherboard. We had done one in the past, when our oldest was first becoming entrenched in the computer world. (My nephew had promptly informed us then that we had decorated the cake with candy and frosting in such a manner that a motherboard would NEVER be hooked up, so this time Paul did some research.) Our daughter chose to have a Little Mermaid cake, for which we already had a pan.

Paul, the number one family cook, decorated them.

While I did two loads of dishes by hand and made the dinner. (I had also baked the cakes and made the frosting.)

Paul posted pictures of the cakes on Facebook. They were truly amazing looking. He got a lot of compliments, including from me. Also my appreciation.

Somehow, no one mentioned that the cakes looked delicious, which they were. Which was my part. Part of my part.

But that's how it goes.

Together, Paul and I have put on sixty-six birthday parties for our children. By now, we are truly a team. Paul is better at cooking, wrapping presents, and decorating the cakes than I am. So, as time allows, he usually does more of those things. I usually do more of the cleaning, planning, and baking. Together, we shop and decide how we will divide up the work. In this, we are flexible, depending on what is going on. As we work, we often feel a real spirit of teamwork building that is very fulfilling.

We pull off the party together. Whatever went right--we'd both contributed to it. Whatever wasn't so great we'd both left undone, sometimes by mutual agreement, sometimes by simply running out of time. We improvise together. We're getting good at it.

This past weekend, another daughter needed a costume for a play. Paul had ideas for the hat/crown that I could not even comprehend as he described them. I know he would have been lost trying to sew a tunic. He did his part, and I did my part. At the end of the day (literally), the costume was complete. I could not have done what he did; he could not have done what I did. We both appreciate each other's contribution.

In some ways, we are quite a traditional couple. In others, we're not. This is what I believe about marriage--the husband and wife need not be forced into fixed roles; they should figure out between them how things work out best and do accordingly. Their work as the joint heads of the family is both of their work.

If I cannot deal with mold without having PTSD symptoms of recurrent visions and anxiety about it for hours afterward, it becomes Paul's job to deal with it. (Which hopefully means more than he just dumps it out and leaves the dish for me to deal with.) If there's something that Paul has trouble doing, I often step up to do it.

We both earn money. We both take care of the children. We both cook, although Paul does the majority of that because it is his favorite way to contribute. We both clean, although I do the majority of that. Without spelling it out, over the years the laundry has evolved into my job; grocery shopping has evolved into his. He does more yard work. I do more planning. We both do dishes. (Of course, he does them his way, and I do them my way. Because we're both right.)

We have learned to not keep score, but to each do what we reasonably can and appreciate our partner for what she or he does. This goes a long way toward marital happiness. We both expect each other to contribute. But we also are able to give each other a break, cut some slack, when needed.

My dad used to say that each partner cannot give 50% to the marriage, or it will fail. Each partner has to give 100% of all she and he can.

When our daughter's birthday party started, Paul was still decorating the Ariel cake. This isn't how we had planned it to happen, but I rounded up the kids and took them to the family room and started the party. He joined us as soon as he could. While he was leading a game, I sneaked upstairs and set the table. It's so much nicer to have a feeling of, "Wow! Thanks for doing that!" than "I did this much and you only did so much."

We've got each other's backs, as well as our own. It feels a whole lot better than the alternative.