To Love a Mockingbird

Well, well. That pound that came to visit me last week decided to take a hike. Weight loss makes no sense at all. The week before when I gained the pound, I was so vigilant of what I ate and how intense I exercised but to no avail I still gained a pound. But this week, this week you can see how I ate from this post. Granted the pancakes were the harvest grain pancakes made from scratch with whole wheat flour and had pecans and walnuts in them and we use cane syrup. Even the cool whip is free of sugar and all that other junk. I cannot defend the cake though, it was just plain bad for me. But this week I lost!

Goal:             30 pounds

Previous:     30.4 pounds

2/8/08:        ↓1.0 pounds

To Goal:     29.4 pounds

I hope that I am not going to start see-sawing back and forth with this one pound!

And we now interrupt this regularly scheduled program of Fat Loss Friday to bring you the first installment of Babysitter Loss Thursday.

We lost our babysitter last night. Not to a sickness, not because of death but because of a rice krispie treat. I know that this sounds absolutely absurd, it would to me too if I wasn’t living it. Before I get into it I need to give you a little background information. Before we even had children, Eric and I discussed how we wanted to raise them. One of the big parenting issues for me was nutrition and I have read a lot and tried to educated myself to the point where I know what foods help my child grow into a strong, healthy person.

 I nursed my child exclusively for the first two months of her life. When I had to return to work I pumped for the following five months (in a bathroom stall) so that she could continue to reap all the benefits that my milk could provide. Don’t get me wrong, we did have to supplement with formula because once I had returned to work I wasn’t producing near enough to satisfy her. It was a sad day in July when I decided that I should just go ahead and wean her because we were down to one nursing session at night anyway. But I felt confident that I had done all that I could do to give her the best start in life. That is what every mother wants for their child, isn’t it?

So really what happened last night isn’t all that different. We had told our babysitter, who Lucy had been going to for two years, that we did not want her to have junk food. We always sent her with her own milk, juice and yogurt. Her babysitter always cooked lunch for the kids and made sure that they had a starch, protein and vegetable. Even though she prepared the meals differently from me, this wasn’t what bothered us. What bothered us was the snacking. We don’t want Lucy having snacks with high fructose corn syrup, trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils. It isn’t good for adults and it sure isn’t good for a small child who is still growing.  

When Eric went to pick up Lucy yesterday and found her with a rice krispie treat in her hand he told her that she should not be eating that and mommy doesn’t want you to have things like that. He addressed her about this situation, not the sitter, not anyone else. I know my husband (or at least I like to think I do) and I know that sometimes he can look angrier than he actually is. However, I do not believe that he was in anyway ugly to Lucy or anyone else that was there. He didn’t know the whole story and he didn’t stick around to find out. He took our daughter home.

Once I returned home for work and found out what had happened, I was disappointed that this was happening again. We (he) had asked before for them to please not let her have any junk food. I decided that I would call the sitter to make sure that things were OK and to see if we could come to a reasonable agreement on the situation. We talked, we cried and we did come to an agreement. The agreement was that if it was a holiday party or another child’s birthday let her have what the other children are having, if the other kids were having something just because call me and ask me if its OK. I know that the last part of the agreement would take a little more of her time but aren’t we paying her to care for our child the way we want her cared for?

After we finished supper the phone began ringing. It was our sitter’s husband and from the uh-huhs that Eric was saying I could gather that it wasn’t a good conversation. To sum it up our sitter’s husband pretty much told us that they could not and would not respect our wishes of the no junk food rule and that we could continue sending Lucy there until we found another sitter. When Eric told me this, I wrote a check and went to pay her for her services that she had rendered for  this week. There was no way I was sending her back.

So long story short (yeah right), I paid, we cried, exchanged a few more unpleasant words and said goodbye.

 I know that I will not always be able to shield my child from harmful food but I want to give her the best that I can and I want to teach her how to make healthy decisions. I feel know that this is our choice to make. It just kills me that I have been sending Lucy there for two years and it has ended with me feeling like I don’t even know who these people are. I am sick to my stomach. Sick that I have to start this search over again and sick that Lucy has to get used to a new caregiver and friends.

If you have any words of wisdom (or know of any good sitters) please feel free to pass on the information. I could use it.