minky

To hold you over…a Huckleberry claps!

By this time next week I will be relaxing and (hopefully) basking in the HUGE success that was DC’s very first Listen To Your Mother show. I’m directing. I’m overwhelmed and freaking out and just…GAH!

But in a good way. Does that make sense?

Last night I met with one of my favorite people, Sue, and I suddenly morphed back into pre-baby acting coach ME. I broke down her exquisite piece with her section by section and it felt good. So good. Thankfully Sue was really open to it. I can’t wait to watch her take to the stage and soar.

I haven’t been on stage since before I got pregnant with The Boss. So, five years. Five years. I am terrified and thrilled about it.

This weekend I just stopped. Overwhelmed to the point of immobility, and it was a re-run of the Big Bang Theory that provided the giddyup in my gate. Sheldon employing the Shower Principle. Do a menial task and allow the rest of your brain to problem solve. With not a second to spare, my brain in a tangled mess of panic and problem solving, I decided to make an acid eaten mirror. Because, obviously. Despite the two hours not spent on Listen to Your Mother work, I felt better. Less panicked. Then in between rehearsals I painted the bathroom, naturally. I should panic more often…I get shite done! And yes, as soon as I can I’ll post pictures. I’m now eying every mirror in the house thinking “You want to be eaten by acid don’t you?”  Some of them do, I’m telling you, some of them do.

Just like any show some things haven’t gone according to plan…but much like a wedding -if we are married at the end of the day it’s a success- if at the end of Listen To Your Mother these brave women’s stories have been heard, it’s a success.Extra success if we get to write a big check to Why Mommy’s charity…I think we will!

It’s not to late to get tickets, but they are going fast!

Also, if anyone knows a DC Videographer who wants to be amazing and worshiped let me know!

{my wedding day, the healthiest I have ever been}

If you don’t follow me on twitter then perhaps you don’t know that I am obsessed with the Today Show. OBSESSED, I say. It is non-negotiable viewing in the morning. On Monday I was late for a deadline and I desperately said to The Boss “Would you like one of your shows on the TV?”  He casually tossed back over his shoulder “Nah Mommy, I’m cool with the Today Show.”

And then I collected the Pulitzer in Parenting.

But most mornings I spoon organic smushed fruit down Huckleberry’s desperately morning hungry gullet and smile at The Boss as he races past me in one of his morning concert routines.  As I feed the eagerly eating baby and beg the faster than light three year old to eat anything at all, I kick it with Matt, Ann, and Al. Also Savannah and dear God she’s so gorgeous it should be illegal Natalie Morales.  Tweeting all the while. Because,  you know, every silly Today Show thought I have must be shared with the world!

But some times…. 140 characters cannot contain my thoughts. Such it is with this K.E. Diet. Because, seriously? What the fekk? (those last two sentences are responsible for the death of many English teachers, my apologies.) If you are so desperate to get skinny for your wedding that you get a feeding tube? You have an issue and that issue is not the June Bride’s Magazine. It is a mental issue.

This is not okay, and I don’t care what the doctor says….it’s just NOT. Feeding tubes are not a diet choice, they are a gift to those who need it and something you hope to get off of as fast as possible.

It’s true, this hits close to home. As ‘recovered’ eating disorder survivor I am of course biased. There are good doctors and bad doctors, and while I am not calling the doctor who invented this a bad doctor, he is certainly irresponsible to sell this as a diet. I was this close to a feeding tube. I made deal after deal after deal with doctor after doctor after doctor to avoid it, as it is a way to get patients to gain weight.

Women are willing to have a tube slid through their sinus cavity and down their throat into their stomach to send them barely enough nutrition to exist, and that? Is so very, very messed up. I am willing to bet that these women who opt for this are at the very least susceptible to the eating disordered mindset at the very least.

Doctors and nurses aren’t infallible. While I was being assessed for my intake in to the treatment center for my eating disorder the resident said to me “You are so thin! You’ll have to tell me your secret.” My secret was that I was killing myself to be thin, and that’s why they were locking me up. I was 82 pounds and thought I was fat but even I knew she was messed up for not realizing that I was sick. Every rib was visible. My hipbones jutted out. My feet hurt, standing for long periods of time was impossible, I had no fat pads on my feet. It was bone-skin-floor and it hurt.

If I had been offered a calorie restricted option…barely 800 calories a day, I might have taken it, gained just enough weight to get them off my back and then ripped it out.

A feeding tube is a way to up calories and nourish a body that cannot receive nourishment any other way.

It is not a way to lose weight.

If you think it is, you are wrong. If your doctor offers it as an option, find another doctor. And above all else, know that you don’t have to be 100 pounds to be a beautiful bride.