Sooooo Big!


You wouldn't believe what comes out of this kid, though.

After making it through much of the winter without catching a cold, I was hit pretty hard by a virus on Monday. Getting a cold would not be noteworthy except for the fact that I have asthma. Even a run-of-the-mill cold hits my immune system like a freight train (a wheezy, snot-filled train). As luck would have it, I had already made an appointment to see my asthma/allergy doctor this week. My asthma medications (maintenance inhaler plus rescue inhaler) had run out so I needed to go in for a check-up in order to receive new prescriptions. I picked up the kid from school on Tuesday and, since the law frowns on leaving small children home alone, I had to take her to the doctor's appointment with me.

As you may recall, I have a profound dislike for these appointments. The whole scene just irritates me to no end. Yes, they measured my height again. Why why why why? Is there even the remotest possibility that I will have grown or shrunk so much that it will affect the medications I'm prescribed? And of course they insisted on weighing me as well. I guess I can almost understand that one, though I still hate it. I stand there and look away while the nurse tap tap taps the slider on the scale. Then comes the questionnaire. Still have your cat? Yes. Do you encase your pillows in plastic? No. Same answers every time. I guess saving them in their system would be crazy. I mean, I'm 40 years old. If I were going to start doing anything in my life differently, wouldn't I be doing it by now?

The nurse took my vitals, complimented me on my blood pressure, and then left to summon Dr. W, who arrived shortly thereafter. A sat on the floor looking at some children's books. A few minutes into the exam, she became desperate to use the bathroom. I told her she'd need to wait. She carried on until finally Dr. W suggested that I go ahead and take her, and that he'd busy himself with dictating a chart while we were gone. So, I rushed the kid off to the ladies' room, which turned out to be a one-seater (no stalls).

"I have to poop, too," she said nonchalantly as she hopped up onto the potty. "Don't see it." (She has done this since she was toddler and it always cracks me up. Instead of "don't look at me" she says "don't see me!")

I do actually try not to look most of the time, but as she climbed off the toilet, I caught a glimpse. She had laid a neon green log in the potty at my allergist's office. "WHAT DID YOU EAT?!" I asked her. She just shrugged. Seriously, I need to keep a closer eye on my daughter's diet, I guess.

Anyway, getting back to the scale issue . . . I think I've all but given up on my six-week challenge. I continue to count points and exercise and all that jazz, but I can't seem to lose an ounce. This is baffling to me, because I used to be darned good at this weight loss business. I had steady losses from the time I joined Weight Watchers to the day I reached my goal weight. Sure, I fall off the wagon from time to time, but not to the extent that I should be this far off target. I have one theory, which is that some sort of hormone issue is at work. (TMI ahead) I went off the pill last July. I was experiencing a health issue that I thought might be related to the pill. My guess was wrong, but I stayed off the pill anyway. I can't bear children (and at 40, who wants to?), so I am not worried about getting pregnant. If anything, though, going off the pill should have caused a weight loss, not a gain. The fun part of the story is that now Aunt Flo arrives whenever the frock she feels like it. Sometimes she stays away for six weeks at a time, other months she shows up two weeks in a row (that hag).

Anyway, enough about that. I've got to go hork up a lung now.