Bonjour, Bebe!, or, a review of Bringing Up Bebe

I've always pictured myself as a Briton at heart -- I love all things British; in fact, a recent discovery that the Safeway near my house has started stocking imported English goods like cookies and juice that I used to buy in London made me happy for days. However, after reading Bringing up Bebe, by Pamela Druckerman, I have a sudden affinity for all things French.

I was trolling around on Amazon for some books on dealing with and raising babies. I've read all kinds of books about the nuts and bolts of physically caring for infants and small creatures of that sort, but as Miss Violet has now moved into the next phase of her life, I wanted something that would give me some insight on ways to help mold and shape my young flower into the delicate, graceful, and articulate blossom I wish her to become.

During said trek up the Amazon, I came across Bringing Up Bebe. I was immediately intrigued by the memoir-esque style vs. technical manual that some baby-rearing books can feel like, so I added it to my cart.

I was not disappointed.

Druckerman is an American who married a Brit and moved with him to Paris, where they then had a daughter and twin boys. She also used to be a journalist, so her approach to the differences she sees in how French parents raise their kids compared to what she's used to seeing from American and even British families is to delve into the issue and figure out the W's -- what, why, how, etc.

First, the book starts by giving us Druckerman's background, which threw me a bit at first, but I soon appreciated. Again, one of the selling points for me with this book was that it felt like a more personal tome, and learning about the author's background and how she came into being married and having kids in the first place helped me relate to her reactions to things like French babies "doing their nights," (that's STTN for us American moms), and the norm of French mothers getting their figures back three months after giving birth. And the personal anecdotes are what shape the book, Druckerman taking us through her daughter's first years and the issues she encountered as a mom, as well as her subsequent pregnancy with twins and the struggles those little bundles brought with them. Through all, and blended quite seamlessly with the personal stories, is the journalistic research -- interviews with French school teachers, nannies, parents, and pediatricians, as well as the articles and studies she quotes to back up her observations and theories.

I was especially drawn to the chapters on baby sleep and baby weight (on mom). Miss Violet still only "does her nights" about half the time, waking up once in the middle of the night for a bottle is still her norm at 14 months old. And when she was younger, I very much sturggled with getting her to sleep, and feeling like a failure each time she woke up. I just couldn't figure out why she wouldn't sleep longer, when I felt as though I was doing everything all the books said to do.

Passed. Out. With blankie.

In her book, Druckerman talks about the French technique of The Pause. As opposed to crying it out, which  is ignoring the baby's cries, The Pause suggests waiting a moment when baby starts to cry, listening, observing your child and then responding appropriately to what he or she needs. Is he really awake, or just stirring in his sleep? Babies need help learning to work through their natural sleep cycles, and by not immediately rushing into the baby when she cries, the French mother is giving her baby time to learn this skill.

Of course, when baby is crying, a moment feels like an hour. But after reading this chapter of the book, I waited the next time Violet woke up crying at 11:30pm. I gave her exactly 5 minutes -- almost exactly 5 minutes on the nose, she resettled herself and fell back asleep. When she woke up again the following night, and did not go back to sleep, it occurred to me after listening to her that she had been cranky from teething earlier in the day, and I gave her some baby tylenol before putting her down again. Different outcomes on each night, but it was the difference of pausing, observing (from the other side of the door, with my ears) her behavior and taking that moment to figure what it was she really needed from me, not just automatically sticking a bottle in her mouth.

The other chapter I found particularly interesting was the one that dealt with French women and their figures after childbirth. As Druckerman points out, the pregnancy culture in America seems to give gals a pass for eating whatever they want while their pregnant, making it seem like everything is fair game, because, well, you're pregnant, you're supposed to gain some weight, so eat pancakes now while you still can! And after you've had the baby, well, you're a new mother for heaven's sake, you're allowed to hang onto that weight for a while, you're tired and busy and stressed!

14-months post childbirth, starting to look saucy again!

Not so in France. French women don't see pregnancy as an excuse to let themselves go -- whatever for? Just because they're pregnant they should stop caring about how they look? Really, what hit home for me was the French feeling Druckerman points to that being a mother does not negate being sexy, or having a life as a woman outside of one's children, nor should one feel guilty for paying attention to ones own needs. I also love the term "paying attention" rather than "being on a diet" for eating well. It makes so much more sense, doesn't it? Being on a diet implies restriction, being bad vs. being good. Whereas paying attention simply means that you're paying attention, and if you forget to pay attention for a while and have a chocolate croissant for breakfast, you simply start paying attention again at lunch. No guilt. No shame. Just common sense.

Finally, Druckerman discusses the respect that French parents instill in their children -- saying bonjour and au revoir to both other children and adults alike is mandatory for all children old enough to speak, teaching them from an early age that other people have feelings that matter just as much as their own, and that they must be considerate of the people around them. I love that. I've been teaching Violet please and thank you, of course, and usually trying to get her to say bye-bye even though it's mostly because she looks so cute when she waves. But I love this idea of teaching respect so early on, so I'm going to starting trying to remember to coach her into hellos and goodbyes every time.

Bye-bye!

Something Different

So...I was reading back through last month's workout magazine, in which there was an interview with mommy and all around super lady Rebecca Romijn. Here's a woman who carried and birthed and is subsequently raising twins (who are adorable, btw), and looks like a slice of fantastic in a swimsuit. The article was nice, too, pointing out that she has to workout lots and watch what she eats in order to get that shape back after kids, and maintain it now. She also mentioned the mommy's guilt at leaving house and home to actually get those workouts in, which is definitely relatable. But the one thing that really stuck out for me was when she talked about how, after having her kids, the diet and the forms of exercise that she used to swear by were no longer working for her, that she had to change everything up and do things she'd never tried before in order to get those 60 lbs of baby weight to go away and stay away.

Since bringing Miss Violet into the world, I have been telling myself that losing this weight should be a snap. After all, I've lost a bunch of weight before, I know what things to do and so forth to lose it again. In practice, however, those old habits weren't working for me this time around, and every time I tried to tell myself to just go back there, I would get frustrated and down on myself because it wasn't working. Why couldn't I "just" do what I used to do, why wasn't I strong enough (metaphorically) to just slip right back into that old routine, etc.?

Reading the lovely Rebecca's interview, it dawned on me -- um, nothing is the same as it was before having a baby. So what makes me think that my old tricks and routines would work the same, either? You know how I lost weight after college? After work, I went straight to the gym for anywhere from 60-90 minutes, 4-5 days a week. I didn't even have a cat at this point, it was just me. I bought bags of ceaser salad and ate them for dinner, because I was only feeding myself. I was also getting more and better rest each night, since I could sleep without interruption from the time I laid down until the time my alarm clock went off. I had more time, energy, and well, time, to dedicate to being in the gym and reading fitness mags and being in the zone.

Now, I'm lucky if I get 6 uninterrupted hours of sleep a night. I have to concern myself with making sure the Mister has something tasty and filling enough for his dinner. When I get off work, I know that both Shawn and the baby are waiting for me at home to take over child care duties, give dinner, bath, books and bed; on top of working on my writing, keeping up with housework, reading if I have a chance, etc. So the time to dedicate to working out and exercising must be carefully carved out of each day, looked for and stolen whenever it presents itself. Which means I have to think about it more than I used to -- most days, I can't just head to the gym on autopilot after work, I have to think about my schedule the night before, plan out how and when I'm going to fit in a workout the next day so that I can pack the appropriate bag to take with me, or know that I'm going to do a dvd when I get home so there's no need to bring anything to work.

And while there's good in that, it also makes it more difficult to get the momentum of a routine going -- if everyday is different, it's easier to find a sudden excuse not to workout that day, or not to eat healthfully. And in the beginning stages of a weight loss effort, it's especially easy to be derailed. And what was keeping me the most stuck was the constant inner questioning of why I just couldn't knuckle under and get back to my old routines. As I hope we're all aware, berating ourselves is no way to build positive mojo.

So, recognizing that things are of course different now has relieved that pressure from me, and has reminded me that, as long as I'm doing something just about every day, I'm moving closer to my goals. I made a little mini goal for the next two weeks to use a piece of fitness equipment every day. So if I'm too tired or busy to hit the gym on a given day, I can pick up the hand weights I have at home and do some bicep curls in the evenings.

It's not about going back to the person I used to be, it's about moving forward into the person I will become, a new me, moving into my (jesus) thirties soon, not the twenty-something I was when I first lost weight, but now a busy, strong, determined woman with a fiance and a baby and a lot of stuff on my plate, who will find new ways of being the hot and fabulous chick on the outside that I have always been on the inside.

My Love for Italian Cheese

If you're anything like me, you have a giant sweet tooth that needs to be checked. If I'm ever to get down to my goal weight, I must must must learn to avoid every chocolate covered seductress that leers at me from the grocery and convenience store shelves. The candy aisle at Safeway is my red light district, no joke. Thankfully, I have discovered a pure and sweet path to the straight and narrow. That's right, the key to my soul's sugar salvation summed up in two words -- ricotta cheese.

Ricotta cheese is like, the greatest thing to happen to my own personal dessert menu ever. It's like the tofu of the dessert tray -- it can become anything. Unlike tofu, it tastes fabulous. (Sorry tofu lovers. I am not one of you.)

The glorious thing about ricotta is that, in the part-skim variety, it has a fraction of the cals and so on that any other dessert base (hello, dense chocolate cake, I'm looking at you) can claim, and a bunch of fab calcium and protein and yadda yadda. And because of it's lite and fluffy texture, I'm for surely eating way less of it than I would some other super rich dessert (eyeballing chocolate cake as it tries to sneak out the door...)

But the best part is that it can taste like apple pie AND tiramisu and that's just the beginning.

Despite it's name, it does not, in fact, taste like the cheese your brain is no doubt conjuring up. It tastes very much like nothing until you add delicious somethings on top of it. I've included a couple of recipies here for my most favorite ricotta concoctions, but if you want to experiment, these are my tips:

• it's smooth and creamy, so always add something crunchy or hard for a lovely contrast
• always serve ricotta concoctions in pretty dishes meant for fancy desserts, or something like (I like to use one of Shawn's scotch tumblers. They look fancy.)
• the fresh fruit you bought at the farmer's market is begging you to arrange it on top of some ricotta. BEGGING. With honey on top. Literally. 
• use cinnamon and honey for your sweeteners. But just drizzles and sprinkles, you really won't need much.
• these desserts are fantastic to make in layers. It fancies them up even more!

RECIPES ~ there are no measurements for the ingredients because I'm not Rachel stinkin' Ray. I made these up while standing in my kitchen, and everything is sort of just to taste. I trust all you ladies to adjust your portion sizes according to how much you want to eat and through trial and error, like I did. These are just some ideas for how to use ricotta to your advantage. Also, I'm not a dietitian or anything official like that, so none of this is gospel.

Enjoy!

Ricotta Concoction #1 ~ Fake Out Apple Pie

• part-skim ricotta
• pears, sliced (I used a can of pears in lite juice that I had in the pantry)
• cinnamon spice (I used my Pampered Chef Cinnamon Spice blend, I heart that stuff)
• honey
• granola

Lay down a fluffy white bed of ricotta in your eating vessel of choice. Drizzle with honey. Artfully arrange sliced pears. Sprinkle pears with cinnamon and top with granola. You're welcome.

Ricotta Concoction #2 ~ Tiramisu Triffle

• part-skim ricotta
• cinnamon spice
• honey
• sliced almonds

Again, take a scoop of ricotta and make a nice foundation for your dessert in your pretty dish. Drizzle honey, sprinkle cinnamon, and add enough sliced almond to cover. Repeat. I did two layers, so that I ended up with a layer of almonds on top. 

Ricotta Concoction #3 ~ No Fire S'more Delight

• part-skim ricotta
• honey flavor graham cracker
• Hersey's chocolate syrup (yay, fat free!)

Full disclosure, I haven't tried this yet, but my mouth is already watering. Plan ~ crumble half of the graham cracker into the bottom of my fancy dish, and layer with a scoop of ricotta and a drizzle of chocolate and repeat until chocolate is the top layer. 

Fitness Goals

Sunday night. After a pretty successful weekend as far as diet and exercise are concerned (and otherwise, really. A good weekend all around) I find myself once again motivated for the week to come. I've been making too many excuses for not exercising, and it's time to get into gear. Because we're going to the baseball game tomorrow night, I know I have to do my working out in the morning. I have workout clothes laid out for myself, and a dvd prepped and ready in the player. All I have to do is get dressed and hit play.

I've been using DailyMile.com to track my fitness progress, and since it's meant to tracking your running mileage, it's making me want to get back into running again in earnest. Since I know that, once I get home for the night after work, it's impossible to leave again, I have to work around that -- bringing gym clothes to work so that I can go running straight from the office, packing healthy lunches, and so on.

I made a goal to be back down to shape by this Christmas. Supposedly, it's 9 months up, 9 months down. Well, Baby Violet just turned 5 months, and I'm not sure I'm on track to have lost all the weight in the next 4 months. So it's time to go crazy!