Hopeless Signer-Upper

Everyone calls me a signer-upper. I’ve always been one. I was the kid who’d read through the community center and church bulletins to look for all the classes offered for children each session. It’s even how I learned to break-dance (totally true).

That probably makes me a “good” homeschooler, since I’m pretty adept at scouring every possible publication for every possible kid-friendly activity and class in town. I present these to the kids as options and we end up horribly overscheduled most of the time.

That is just part of my personality, I suppose. The brain surgeon suffers from the same malady.

I’m sort of a vicarious signer-upper at the moment, because as most mothers will tell you, there is little time for pursuing one’s non-familial interests when the kiddies are under 5. So I’ve just became a signer-upper in another way.

Oh, Master Cleanse.

I really haven’t even figured out why I’ve decided to do this. One of my best friends mentioned she was doing it. I said, “have fun” and tried to forget about it. Of course, the “me too!” in me just couldn’t resist thinking about it. I don’t even really “believe” in the Master Cleanse. I do think fasting is great, though I’ve never done it for more than a day. I have been meaning to read Joel Fuhrman’s book on it (Fuhrman is not a fan of the Master Cleanse, by the way).

Anyway, to do this, you mix 14 tablespoons of fresh squeezed lemon juice (I squeeze it every morning), 14 tablespoons of maple syrup and ¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper into 2 liters of water and drink that all day.

Some people also drink a cup of Senna tea in the morning and at night or drink (chug, gag down, whatever) a saltwater solution (2 teaspoons of saltwater in 32 ounces of warm water) in place of one cup of the tea.

Sounds a little bulimic to me.

DAY ZERO: I didn’t do the ease in thing, since I eat a mostly vegan diet, but I did the saltwater thing the night before I started the drink thing. The brain surgeon – with all of his surgical concerns about sodium balance – probably would have freaked out on me if he knew I ingested a bunch of salt for no real reason. Plus, I usually try to eat a low sodium diet (we don’t cook with it and we buy low sodium tomato sauce, etc.), so it’s really out of character. And salty!

I’ll skip the details (I’m not a girl who discusses such things), but you can check out what it says about the saltwater thing here. Trust me, it works. I’m not doing that again.

DAY ONE: I made the maple syrup concoction, which I found surprisingly tasty. It was true that I was never hungry throughout the day, but WHOA, I have NEVER EVER thought about food so much. I would have eaten the elevator I rode in if someone put chocolate sauce on it. Seriously. It seemed like everyone talked about nothing but food, everything smelled of food and food was just created to torture me.

At night, I had to do the grocery shopping for the family and that was even more difficult. Trader Joe’s is always cooking sample things. Sometimes they are meaty smelling and don’t appeal to me, but last night it was Eggplant Parmesan. Oh, the temptation. I’m usually good at avoiding cheese, but woman, did that smell good.

Then I went to Whole Foods to get the Senna Tea, since I found out one brand, aptly named Smooth Move, came in chocolate and decided it was important after all.

When I got home, the kids were still up (the brain surgeon rarely has success with bedtime, though you’ll never hear him admit it), so in the process of putting them to bed, I crashed and slept quite well.

DAY TWO: Today was much easier. I had my Senna tea this morning while driving my children to the soccer field for the first day of my eldest daughter’s soccer camp. She had her new pink and black cleats with her shin guards and her David Beckham (um, is that a shoe in there?)soccer uniform from the L.A. Galaxy charity game we went to a while back and I have to say…she was definitely the cutest kid on the field.

On the way to the next activity, it hit me: I’m breastfeeding. Should I be drinking the tea? (I had already checked on the cleanse itself, which is fine, especially since my daughter is 20 months old). An online search of several sites tonight confirmed my greatest fears…If I keep drinking the tea, my daughter might just be on the fast track to diarrhea-ville. No more chocolate tea for me.

It wasn’t really that satisfying anyway.

Plus, I’m not really obsessing about food anymore. It's weird.

More about day three (and what IS satisfying) tomorrow.

Toodles!