Kate's Second Word, Unsweet Tea, and a Fitness Tip

OK, it MAY be her second word, but Kate started saying "dada" this week. Kelley heard it first. Of course, I didn't believe it because she has been making the "b" sound for a while, but never the "d" sound. She starts off by mouthing "dada" silently. Then she whispers it. Finally, she says it out loud. It's like she's warming up, practicing, and then presenting what she just practiced!

I say that it MAY be her second word because she jabbers a lot of stuff, much of it in a whisper. She repeats something over and over when she's playing or making a mess that sounds like, "I'll try, I'll try, I'll try."

Regardless, I'm happy that she's saying "dada." Maybe one day soon she'll know what it means!

Unrelated, here are a couple videos of Kate to enhance the enjoyment of this post.

A. Kate's in what I call "Discovery/Destroyer" mode. Since she can crawl now, she's trying to figure out what EVERYTHING does. But in the process, she's really making some messes and it won't be long before something gets destroyed.

B. A girl after my own heart. Kate's getting a taste of unsweet tea from Diane. She's been sipping it like this for a couple weeks, and she still grimaces as if she's tasted a lemon. This wasn't her first sip at this time, so her grimace is less severe but still noticeable. More on unsweet tea after the videos.

Only in the south do you have to call it UNSWEET tea. It's better known as, TEA. Don't get me wrong, I love sweet tea. I wish it had zero calories. It took me over a year to ween myself off sweet tea and I did it by mixing sweet and unsweet. Over time, I reduced the amount of sweet and eventually I was content to drink it STRAIGHT UNSWEET. That was in 2003-2004, and I haven't PURPOSEFULLY drank sweet tea since. When you think you're drinking unsweet and it's actually sweet, it's DISGUSTING. Occasionally when I get breakfast at a drive thru, I'll mistakenly be given sweet tea. I find out when it's too late to go back, and usually, it's on my weekly golf trip with my former pastor, Charles Owens. He lives more than 2.5 hours away from us, but we meet somewhere weekly for golf that requires each of us to drive a minimum of 1.5 hours. That's my weekly time to eat a BAD breakfast - a biscuit from Bojangles, Chic Fil A, etc. I eat the SAME THING for breakfast all the other days - a pack of maple and brown sugar oatmeal mixed with an equal amount of plain oatmeal.

Why did I switch to unsweet? I'm not a diabetic, but I am a fitness freak. I like to eat and although I'm careful, I eat till I'm full. The greatest single way for Americans to reduce their daily caloric intake is to STOP DRINKING CALORIES! It's easy to consume 500, 1000, or MORE calories per day just in beverages. A 12oz Coke has 140 calories. A 12oz Mountain Dew has 170 calories. A 12oz orange soda has over 200 calories. Sweet Tea is impossible to rate because everyone makes it with different amounts of sugar. This was part of my dissertation, "A Fitness Model For Pastors."

When I stopped drinking calories, I lost some weight, but more importantly, reduced my waistline and bodyfat considerably - without changing ANYTHING ELSE. For me, it's water, unsweet tea, or diet soda, which I drink sparingly nowadays. One exception is that when I have a softball game, I'll take a low-calorie version Gatorade.

Kate is in the 100th percentile for height, and @ the 80th percentile for weight. Her birth mother is @5'9" and her birth father is 6'3". She's not going to be a small girl like her mom (Kelley is 5'1" and under 100lbs). We're going to give her every opportunity to eat and drink SMART so that she doesn't have to consume herself with her size/weight. Fortunately, she loves being outside so far, and she has active parents who love sports. You may see her on ESPN someday!