I feel that I owe an apology to an entire culture. I exaggerated in an earlier post, giving the impression that Belgians eat a huge amount of fried foods, and that just isn't true. In fact, were I to generalize, I'd see they eat better than we do. One example is their soups--they eat a lot of good soups made from scratch. They rely a lot less on prepackaged foods and make most of their meals from scratch. Also, they have fewer preservatives in things that Americans cram them into, like breads. They still use the local bread store that makes its breads from healthy, fresh ingredients.

So please forgive me for misrepresenting Belgians. My weight gain had more to do with portions (it was my choice to stuff my face with that fresh bread), not with the way Belgians prepare their food.

Speaking of soups, it's lunchtime right now, and homemade soup sounds just about right.

I think I already established that upon my return from Belgium, I discovered I had put on at least five pounds. I could tell not only from the scales, but also from the snugness of my clothes. It was no surprise, however. I ate everything that was placed in front of me, 40 percent of which was deep fat fried. I came home with some resolve to rid myself of this excess baggage, and with the change of seasons, I figured that taking up jogging again would help.

So I began to jog each morning, steadily increasing my mileage and lowering my time. I was surprised and pleased at how I was able to get back to it after months of winter lethargy. At the same time, I changed my eating patterns, returning to my modified South Beach Diet/totally American mode of eating, with whole grains, vegetables, some healthy protein, and so on.

The strange thing was, even with all of these changes, I was actually gaining weight, not losing it. "Muscle weighs more than fat," a friend reassured me, but I was gaining considrable weight; muscle can't way that much more than fat. It was disturbing and depressing. This trend continued, even though I could tell some of my clothes were fitting more comfortably.

Finally, yesterday I started thinking about the scales. Even though I'm quite groggy in the mornings, I had taken note that someone had shifted some of the little markers around the edge that can be slid around to point at my goal weight. Normally I wouldn't have noticed, but I had actually used two of them.

Then it occurred to me that the same little fingers that slid around those pointers may have discovered the adjustment around the edge--the adjustment that can make the scales a little heavier or lighter. Hmmmm....

I had my husband stand on the scales. "These are way off," he concurred. He adjusted it to match his weight, then I stood on the scales myself.

I had "lost" almost ten pounds! The only other time I've experienced such dramatic weight loss was when I gave birth to nine-pound babies!

Two stories:

My preschooler was helping with something and took an extra step to be neat. I said, "You're a very thorough boy." He stopped dead in his tracks, spun around looking rather offended, and exclaimed, "I'm not a throw-up boy!"

"I didn't say 'throw-up,' I said 'thorough.' It means you're doing a very good job."

He grunted, shook his head, repeated, "Well, I'm not a throw-up boy," and went inside, shutting the screen door carefully behind him.

Next story, my husband had been traveling a few days and phoned me from the airport on his way home. "I'm in Detroit."

"Great! Glad you're safe. Just one more leg of the trip to go."

"Yep. So, you're planning to record the two-hour special for me, right?"

"Yes."

"It starts in about fifteen minutes, so go ahead and start it."

"Oh, no need. I'll start it at nine."

"It's only fifteen minutes. Go ahead, that way we won't miss any of it."

"It's okay. I'll start it at nine."

"Okay."

He had to board, so I hung up the phone with about ten minutes to spare. I was reading a book, so I glanced up at the clock. Looked back down at the book, got into the story, and didn't look up again until I finished it. I closed the book with that satisfied feeling. It lasted exactly one-and-a-half seconds, because with that satisfied grin on my face, I looked up at the clock.

It was ten o'clock.

I'd missed one full hour of the two-hour special he was dying for me to tape.

I gasped, almost choking, rushed to the VCR and turned it on. When he landed, I begged him not to be mad. "I won't be mad. What happened?"

"Well, you know how stressful it always is when you travel."

"Yes..."

"And I have been really absent minded, you know. I mean, I'm forgetting a lot lately."

"Yes...."

"Well, I, um, I missed the first hour of the show."

"What?"

"I know! I know, I just, I missed it. I got the second hour, though. I think we can figure it out."

"You missed it?"

"You said you wouldn't be mad!"

"I know, but you missed an hour of it?"

"I know, you're right. I should have started it fifteen minutes before. I'm sorry, I'm soooo sorry."

We're okay now. I thought it was the season finale, but the finale is this week. I think that helped.

I'm too embarrassed, however, to admit that I was reading a book. More so, in fact, because it was a children's book. Yep, I missed half the show because I was totally into a children's book.

First of all, I'd like to talk about potatoes. Specifically, "croquettes."

You've probably heard of salmon croquettes, but have you ever heard of plain old "croquettes"? I've had these in Belgium, and I guess one way to describe them is that they are a cross between a tater-tot and a french fry. No, that does them no justice. Hm, well, they take mashed potatoes, add an egg to keep the potatoes stuck together, roll them into a log, cut them in little sections, then roll them in bread crumbs and fry them. Does that sound good? Maybe not. Well, in my carb-loving opinion, they are a delicious side dish, and I've never found them here in the States.

On this last visit, my sister-in-law held out her package of frozen croquettes and exclaimed, with a hint of disgust, "These are made by an American company, McCain. You look, and I'm sure you'll find them." I've gotten home from previous visits and looked, but never found them.

Until now. I'm pleased to announce that I found a bag of the closest thing to croquettes I've ever found, and they are indeed McCain. To market them to Americans, they called them "Mash-bites," and cut them smaller, more tater-tot sized than true croquettes-sized, but they taste pretty close.

I feel like I did the first time Nutella appeared on the grocery store shelf next to the jam, and the Petit Ecolier cookies showed up in the Imported section of the cookies and crackers. Or the time I discovered some of my husband's favorite Belgian beers at a specialty store in town. I don't know how to describe the feeling; maybe that Belgium doesn't seem as far away as it did before.

Puppies aren't the only things that get worms.

Our computer got one. Well, it could just be a simple virus, what do I know? But a persistent program hijacked my email program and Internet access. I couldn't log on. What's a blogger to do?

Well, this blogger bugged her spouse until he figured it out. It took a few days, but he did it. You can thank him that I'm back.

Plenty of other activities would have left little time for blogging anyway. We were on the soccer field all day long Saturday. The games were staggered, so we had time for a game, run home for lunch, back for another game, run home to mow the lawn and change clothes to accommodate the changing weather, then back to the third game and home for dinner afterwards. Whew! I have to say I'm glad we live that close. We could be home for about an hour, maybe an hour-and-a-half each time--too long to stay at the fields.

One of my friends just had a baby--her first--so I visited the family of three at the hospital. That was one gorgeous baby, let me tell you. My friends looked so content and blissful. Parenthood fits them.

This was a weekend I almost had a garage sale. In fact, I even set it up for a few hours. During that time, I made $1.75. Then I dragged everything back inside and had the kids take down the balloons. Too much work; too little income. We used our proceeds to buy candy at the soccer snack bar this weekend, and I resolved to take my "stuff" directly to charity.

Time is valuable. I'm getting old enough to see that every day is invested in the precious little time I have left to do something with my life. I'm pretty sure I won't look back in ten years wistfully recalling those two long days sitting at the cash box at garage sales, making less than one hundred dollars. I made that one year. It may be what tempts me. I need to remember this season's sales figures.

I'm not sure what I'll say about blogging, however. Maybe I'll look back and consider it just as much of a waste of time as a $1.75 garage sale. Maybe. Maybe not.

I didn't go.

Shame on me, but I didn't go to the game on Sunday. I stayed home and ate brownies with my mom, dad and brother.

Other moms went, however, I found out. Maybe they read that sacrifice blog and felt guilted into it. As soon as my daughter came home, I asked, "How was the game?" "Did you win?" and "Were any moms there?" The answers were "Great!" "Yes," and "Yes."

There was yet another game last night, and one of the moms was talking about what a great game it was on Sunday, making me feel even more like a heel. Today I was picking up a few items at the grocery, and the lady in front of me was chatting with the cashier. "How was your Mother's Day?" the cashier politely inquired. "Great. I was at the soccer fields all afternoon, three games in a row."

Now that's a real mom.

In the name of honesty, I need to tell you the truth: in spite of my most recent post, I'll probably skip that Mother's Day soccer game.

I know, I know...what was that last post all about if I end up staying home?

Well, I'm not sure.

Just yesterday I was talking with my neighbor, a fellow mom with kids in the same age-range as mine. She's taking her mom to lunch today, then driving up to see her mother-in-law.

"What will you do on Sunday, Mother's Day, then? What do you want for yourself?"

"If I were to be honest," she admitted, grinning, "Probably just to be by myself."

You see, I'm not the only one.

It's a delicate holiday to navigate.

Mother's Day is coming up, in case it's not on your radar. It's this Sunday, and guess what the local soccer league decided to do? They scheduled a make-up game smack in the middle of the day on Sunday.

Yes, on Mother's Day, they expect us to do what we so often do: give up a day that's supposed to be a day of rest and relaxation--sacrifice what we might like to do--in order to sit on a lawn chair and root for the team in blue.

Maybe that's at the root of motherhood: sacrifice.

Silly me, I was thinking that mothers on Mother's Day could kick up their feet for a while, read a book, maybe even be alone. But that's the exact opposite of what a mother is. A woman is a mother precisely because there are other people in her life to whom she is fully committed. She wouldn't qualify to celebrate Mother's Day if she hadn't give birth to future swimmers, soccer or softball players.

So in a depressing kind of way, maybe that's exactly what a mother should be doing on Mother's Day--sitting alongside soccer and softball fields, on the bleachers at swim meets, or rooting for her sons on basketball courts.

This life of small sacrifices starts for biological parents with sharing one's own body. Upon delivery, regardless of how one becomes a parent, it becomes a series of sacrifices that never ends but only changes--giving up sleep, space, freedom to decide one's own schedule, and in a way, sacrificing your heart:

"Making the decision to have a child-it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."--Elizabeth Stone

More thoughts on the sacrifice of motherhood (I haven't checked sources, only blindly plucked these from the Internet like any other surfer):

"A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie." ~Tenneva Jordan

"She never quite leaves her children at home, even when she doesn't take them along." ~Margaret Culkin Banning

"When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child."
~Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

"A mother who is really a mother is never free."-- Honore' de Balzac

"By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class." -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Hmph. I had been thinking I might just skip the soccer game and stay home with a good book and some hot tea.

Perhaps instead, on Mother's Day, I should haul out my lawn chair...and be a mom.

Hmmmm.....

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-hitt26apr26,0,1240928.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions