Celebrating my brave boys with a carb meal

On Fridays we take the boys swimming in Bedford. We go to Bedford as our Flitwick pool is f-f-freezing (I used to finish swimming lessons with Ciaran early when his lips turned blue) and the waiting list to get back to lessons is over a terms wait. The pool we swim at is good in many ways, it’s an ozone pool (no chlorine to upset Ciaran’s eczema) with two teachers to each group of six. The downside is that on Friday afternoons I have to drive like a possessed woman from school into and across Bedford.

Ciaran was unhappy about starting swimming after Christmas but by half term had calmed down (as he is so young they put him in a very small group so he could get almost 1-1 attention) and Ben was coming on well until his teachers took all six tummy bands off in one lesson. Most of the kids in his group were too scared to swim and both teachers were focusing on the scared kids while Ben and his friend swam on their backs with a kickboard, when Ben was almost at the other end he lost his board and started to drown. Neither teacher noticed and the lifeguard was apparently ‘scanning’ the other side of the pool. Eventually he noticed and dived in just before my husband and I arrived downstairs at the pool side terrified.

I knew that Ben needed to get back into the water so I encouraged him to get back in with a tummy band. Unfortunately he missed the last lesson before Easter so yesterday was his first time back in the water for three weeks and over Easter he had been brooding a lot on what happened in the water and getting tearful about swimming.

Yesterday I go the boys changed with no tears and took them poolside, Ciaran saw the water, pulled a face and burst into tears while Ben chatted to his friends. I knew that the longer I stayed the harder it would be for Ciaran so I deposited him in the lap of the assistant manager (who I’d warned earlier about both boys being scared) and headed up to the viewing gallery leaving hubby poolside in case of emergencies). By the time I was upstairs Ciaran was in the water with his teacher and bravely letting go of her to swim next to her, Ben had panicked and was refusing to get in.

After ten minutes of letting him get ready in his own time one of his teachers lifted him into the water (the other teacher was there to help him) and as soon as he got in the water he was fine! My parents were watching and commented that once Ben got going he was quite a fast swimmer for a five year old. Both boys had been very brave and I was so proud of my babies for trying hard.

As both boys had been brave (and this time I hadn’t ran so hard in high heels to save my kids that my feet were bruised) we celebrated in style, a Maccy D for the kids on the way home followed by a kebab for us adults. I normally have the meat and salad without the pitta but decided to have a vegetable kebab as a carb meal (I know that the pitta was white but hey Ho) and treated myself to half a portion of chips. While it was nice I missed the spiced meat and the pitta and chips mad me feel so bloated and uncomfortable that I’ll stick to foregoing the pitta!

Back to the Ws

After two weeks at home (mainly under a duvet trying to cure my cold with chocolate and wine) this morning was back to reality with a bump. I was carrying around a stone more than Id like to and half a stone more than normal before I caught the lurgy from hell a few weeks before Christmas. With chest infections, irritable airways, spiking temperatures and finally a secondary ear infection I decided to give the gym a rest.

While Ive not quite been brave enough to weigh myself (yet) the return to work heralded the return to the other big W in my life – weightwatchers. In the post Christmas misery of going back to real life I decided my diet needed to return to normal too, no more medicinal chocolates.

I am a serial diet flirt. I’ve had more diets than boyfriend. While the twin Ws have been there most of my adult life I can’t stop myself flirting with other diets; there was the one where I had to eat a grapefruit a day to do something with my insulin levels, the awful three night stand with Atkins, calorie counting with My Fitness Pal, some food combining one where fruit and veg MUST be consumed before meat and veg (there was a table of food digestion times appealing to the pseudo scientist in me), the 5:2 diet was dumped when we hit a crisis and he couldn’t help me with two poorly kids and slimming world (great for a quick weight loss but too high maintenance for me with my lazy cooking in the longer term).

I know WW may not give me the same exhilarating weight loss and the thrill of doing something illicit behind my long term diet partner’s back (sorry WW I love you but I can’t commit to a monogamous relationship).

A day in and I think I’ve coped, Boots had a pathetic lack of food at lunchtime but M&S had some excitingly yummy food which my long term partner told me I could eat (love the iPad app) and as I had skipped breakfast due to a domestic crisis involving a temperamental downstairs cloakroom I got a salad on top of my sarnie (Fuller for Longer beef and cheese wrap, highly recommended).

I was a good girl I committed to what we’d eat for tea (healthy version of a mushroom stroganoff) and nodded encouragingly at my partner’s new clothes (WW now helps you develop good habits).

I am hoping that I can commit to stick with WW this time as we’re off to the Riviera in May.