Going on a Diet

I decided today I'm tired of having to "settle" with my clothes, I'm tired of now looking like "me". I'm totally going to shed this weight again.

It took some doing to come up with a plan. All  I've ever "known" successfully was low carb. I did that for 4 years, counting maintenance, got depressed after mom died and when I started eating pumpkin cream cheese muffins that we sent to the house after her death, banana pudding and spaghetti (the only 3 foods I could hold down for a week), it started me down a downward spiral and the binge monster came back.

I asked kiddo if she'd be my cheerleader.  She said she wanted to be more than a cheerleader, she wants to go on a diet with me.

Poor child has food insecurities, so I'm having a hard time picturing how that'll work, not to mention I don't want her getting caught in that cycle, so I have to come up with a plan that'll work and still make her realize she'll always have food.

I reminded her she can stop at any time and just be my cheerleader, that I never want her feeling deprived and that's she's beautiful inside and out.  She's totally excited though and had us start with dinner last night.

I changed my facebook pic to my "goal" pic for inspiration. I want to look like this again:

Well, in reality, except the hair, which is now turning gray, lol  But close enough!! I want that body!! Maybe with my graying hair, I will not get quite the level of uncomfortable attention. Got to combat that too.  

Monster

Not sure what's going on, but kiddo has been struggling bad the past 3 weeks.

Another instance of hoarding food (in the playroom/guest bedroom).  It was so disgusting when I found it, that we really had no choice but to remove the bed from the guest bedroom.  We put her cute peace sign chair in their so she can still use it as a playroom.

I wish I knew what was bugging her. I know S being moved so much lately has her really upset, but for some reason I don't really think that was the trigger. Mommy instincts say otherwise. Her BFF says she's not been talking to her much lately either and she normally will talk non stop to her about S.  It's so hard for me to pinpoint.  S moving again, my spraining my ankle and her spending time in the ER with me couldn't have been easy (especially since her last placement (supposedly--sw says so, C says it happened before then too) went South due to medical issues turning her adad into a monster no child should have to deal with) and my having to go out of town on business.  Maybe a combination of all those stressors took it's toll?

I hope that her therapist can get something out of her Wednesday.

Huummm, just realized she's been wound up ever since her last therapy session.  Wonder if she walked out a little unsettled and hasn't calmed down? Not sure, but either way, I want my consistent baby back instead of this up and down baby.

Yesterday was a great day. Although she didn't want to get rid of the bed, she understood why and once the room was rearranged, she loved it and we sat in the middle of the floor and played one of her new Christmas games.  I so hope we can have another good day today.

I hate Winter and I tend to get depressed during Winter so I hope kiddo isn't channelling me and picking up on my mood and thinking it's directed at her. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I bought broadway tickets to see The Adamms Family for us all, hoping to give us all that pick me up we need.

Kiddo's squealing when I told her---priceless!!!

Talking Through the Cat

My child does like I did with my mom.

Bonkers is the go between on the hard subjects.

When my mother was diagnosed with cancer and I wanted to talk things over, but afraid I'd cry in front of mom, I'd talk to her cat (my cat now...Bonkers)  in front of her playfully and sorta get out the things I needed her to hear before she left me and let her know how much she was loved.

This morning, Princess C put Bonkers in front of my face and was talking about how her and Bonkers love having each other for a sister and that Bonkers needed to "talk to me".  I asked her what Bonkers needed to tell me. She said Bonkers says that she put in for us to adopt another child. I asked Bonkers what she did that for. "Bonkers" said she wanted another sister.  Conveniently, she'd prefer a 9 year old sister.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that message.

(S is 9, for viewers that don't know)

First Night Apart

I'm not sure who was struggling more, me or kiddo.

I had a business trip Sunday-Wednesday.  I left here Sunday and while it was obvious kiddo wasn't happy about my having to leave, she didn't cry or anything.

I got about 15 miles up the road and remembered I left my shoes behind. Who does that?  So, I turned around and came back for my shoes. When I went to her room to tell her bye again, I found her laying on her bed crying and she said she missed me already. Totally made me cry, of course. Then again, I'm a crier anyway.

I went on my trip and when  I arrived, I called home. Hubster said she calmed down and they played games all afternoon together.  Monday, he said after they hung up from talking to me, she cried some more.

Monday evening, I was on my way to my hotel room when her former SW called to tell me that baby sis S is being moved yet again.  This time, she'll be returning for a second trip to residential. I'm so heartbroken about that.

I waited until Wednesday when I returned before hubster and I told our Princess about her baby sis.  I didn't want her worried about that when she was already struggling about my being gone.  (I assumed it was being afraid that I would abandon her and not come back, but SW says she's pretty sure it demonstrates a healthy attachment forming and that I should be happy with the response)

Princess response? "Ok, well, my show is on, can I get back to it now?"

I'm pretty sure we're in for a really rough fallout when this hits her. She's NEVER had a response like that to her moves, normally we get a temper tantrum about people giving up on her and how bad it is to have that many moves.

On a lighter note, S seems genuinely glad to go back to residential. That screams severe RAD to me. Hopefully, she can get some healing this time.

Bucket List

Sometimes achieving goals isn't the ultimate goal. Depends on 1) whether you were meant to do that and 2) whether you can raise the bar. Anticipation is many times much better than the actual moment. Life is a little like Christmas. We look forward to achieving certain goals, doing certain things, receiving certain items and once it's there, it's just there. Christmas Eve has always been better than Christmas Day because of the joy, air of excitement around, lots of fun and banter, rather than everybody spending time with their material things they've looked forward to receiving all year. 

Life is like that too.Accomplishments do not bring joy, unless it's your purpose on life. The journey to those accomplishments, how you achieve them, the relationships along the way, etc and seeing progress is what's important. 

I don't say this to diminish the importance of accomplishments. I think ANY thing you do you should give 100% and not be a quitter. Don't give up, achieve your accomplishments, but always want to go to the next level. Always have something to drive you forward. 

So, I'm making a bucket list....things I want to do before I die & things important to me that I have done. 

Anyway, my point behind putting what I HAVE done and not just what I WANT to do.....take the time to count your blessings when you think you haven't accomplished anything or when you feel like you have no purpose, look at the things you've done that bring you joy, maybe you can find your purpose there

Better Late than Never!

I'm usually all over creating my new years resolutions prior to the new year starting, I get overly excited about a fresh start.

Hubster was laughing at me when I got my new calendar. I caress it, smell and touch the pages and can't wait to put my first notes in it.  Yeah, so I'm weird, but it's just something about a fresh start that feels so good.

So, why in the world is it the 5th of the month and I haven't posted or even made resolutions? What is wrong with me? Other than spraining my ankle, getting sick, doing normal mommy stuff, etc.

Well, better late than never....my goals for this year.
Remember, goals must be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound to succeed.

• continue to work on attachment parenting, my measure of success will be decreased meltdowns and increased communication (so proud of how much progress my baby girl has made over the past year)
• be the best wife I can for my hubster by listening and spending more time together
• reduce my size by 1 dress size minimum this year (baby steps, it seems doing big steps there stresses me out too much and I give up too quick) by better eating and increased movement
• payoff at least 1 bill to make more disposable income to enjoy our 'lil family
• do more as a family than our Friday night dinners out, keep an eye on community events and activities we'd all enjoy
• 15/15 housekeeping and get kiddo involved in helping around the house this year a little, last years goal was primarily bonding, but she needs to also be taught the things to run a house, little at a time until she's grown
• get kiddo into an activity, she needs it for her esteem as well as to give her a distraction from stressing over her baby sister so much
• make a sizable bonus for 2014 and participate in monthly incentives every month
• be a good leader for my team at work, get our branch successfully running and proper teamwork, follow up constantly
• start a savings account for kiddo
• consistent savings for us as well, $1 first week, $2 second week, etc.
• contribute to an area of passion (ie, kids backpack program, holiday gifting for kids in needs, foster support)
• be the best me that's possible

Last Years Resolutions

This was my post from last year. Holding myself accountable for what I did and didn't do. The blue is what last years post was and the red is my response.  


Ahhhhh, a New Year to give us a New Hope. On the midst of reviewing the prior year and realizing there is only one goal that I even came close to hitting, I’m still optimistic for success going forward. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Let’s make it better in 2013 and focus. 

…..SQUIRREL!!!

Found our kiddo in 2012 and looking forward to making a great life together in 2013 and forward.... a new me is me being "mommy". Yesterday I dropped by the office and one of my team members said I'm just glowing and that mommyhood seems to be agreeing with me. I tend to agree. I'm amazed at how NOT stressed I am over the job while I'm on leave. I've found a new identity!!

While we have great hopes, we don’t always take action into fulfilling those wishes. So, 2013….bring it on….let’s work on the controllables! Let’s make those wishes action based.
2013 resolutions:

• Daily focus on attachment parenting, continue to learn on attachment parenting through training, reading and following Last Mom Blog, but most importantly experience with our Princess
Did this pretty well, got numerous compliments from the social workers along the way  on how well we embrace attachment parenting• Payoff 2 bills….switching jobs in 2011 to take care of our daughter and have plenty of family time really played havoc on the budget, need to get this in control so we don’t feel broke all the time and so we can budget for tons of family activities easily.
blush, totally did not do that
• Lead by example at home and work—with a new daughter in the home, it’s important to teach her, love her and show her. Love her unconditionally and help her build on her trust in us over the course of the year and realize she can count on us for the long haul.
There is always room for improvement, but I think I've done a fairly decent job at showing vs telling and helping build the trust for the first year
• Spend 10-15 minutes a day on housekeeping so it doesn’t get behind and so we’re not cutting into family time to do mundane housekeeping chores
except in this area, man, I'm a bad role model here. Can I have a re-do
• Get out of the rut and work on new things to do as a family together, not just “eating out”. December was full of fun activities and we made the most of it. Just because it’s not Christmas doesn’t mean we can’t find fun things to do January-November. 
totally made it count and excited
• Start a college savings and a normal savings for lil Miss after her adoption is final and teach her money management
adoption wasn't final until November and birth certifcate not in until December, so haven't been able to do that yet
• Regular charitable donations in an area of passion (ie, kids)
I'd like a re-do please
• Eat healthier (adding veggies to dinner), become more active and see results through a 2 size reduction in 2013
down 1 size for 2013, more from being more active with the baby
• BE POSITIVE!! AND BE A GREAT ROLE MODEL FOR OTHERS! 
that's subjective and I may or may not see the fruits of my labor there, that's for others to decide if I succeeded, not for me to decide.

My family, colleagues and friends deserve to have the very best of me, not second rate material

Everything is a Teaching Moment

So, a few weeks back, our dryer broke, AGAIN!!

After awhile finally got somebody in to look at it. it would have been $1300 to fix it, so off shopping for a dryer went the baby and her daddy, they went out of town Friday, spent two hours and picked out a dryer.  Because we'd had to go to the laundry mat the week before, hubster chose to bring the dryer home himself instead of having it delivered so we'd have immediate access.  When they got ALMOST home, a tractor trailer goes flying past so fast that the wind from him raised the dryer out of the truck and went flying all over the bypass.  $679 down the drain, that quick.  

When I got home, they couldn't wait to tell me about what happened.

Yesterday went shopping for another dryer, but that's not the point of the story.

The lesson: Babygirl got to see another example of daddy and mommy maintaining their cool even in adverse situations. My prayer in all these situations is that she takes the little things and files them in the life lessons category and continues to heal, knowing that we will not give up on her or get upset over the little stuff that past families may have been exasperated with.  We want to teach her problem solving skills rather than melting down over problems.

Mean or Spoiled?

She still hasn't come out with what's bugging her. She's being a sweetheart and apologized several times and said she really doesn't know why she did that.

The morning after the crazies, she didn't get up until noon.  I had to work but daddy kept checking on her.  Finally he got her up at noon and told her if she would hurry and get up and get ready, he'd take her to lunch.  Sometimes she'll open up when they're riding in the truck.

She still says she doesn't know why, but feels really bad about it.

He told her she needed to think about and let us know whether she prefers to be mean or spoiled.  She said spoiled, definitely. He told her it couldn't be both ways, that all of us prefer she choose spoiled, but we weren't going to spoil a mean daughter.  We would tough it out and never give up on her, but it would be needs, not spoiling.

I got home and while I was cooking dinner, she came up to me and hugged me tight and apologized. I asked her what she was sorry for because I wanted to make sure she got what we were upset about. She understood.

So things have been good again since then.

She almost did a typical tween snap last night and daddy just smiled and said "Mean or spoiled baby".  She started giggling and said "SPOILED!!" She says she knows she's spoiled rotten and loves it.

We ended the last couple nights with our bedtime stories.  Still on the Weird School series about the little boy Arlo.  We love those books. Dread finishing them.  Any good tips on the next series to start together?

What we've loved reading together (we prefer light at night):  Dork Diaries, Dumb Diaries, Weird School, Wimpy Kid

Funny how the weird school series started.  Book 18 is called Ms Yonkers is Bonkers. Because our cats name is Bonkers, we got it for kiddo for her birthday and labeled it from Bonkers. Turns out the main character is Arlo (our dogs name). They're hysterical and the little boy is so cute and funny, like our puppy would be if he were a 2nd grade human.  A little young for us, but we love them.  It's small chapter books for when kids first go to chapter books, but so daggone funny and perfect for us.

I love my kid, it's nice to be back on the loving list.

Stuck

My little girl is stuck in traumaville, I can't figure out what's going on and my sweet baby girl has turned into a terror.  I wish I could figure out what's up.  It hurts so deeply to see her struggle.

When she's struggling, she argues, about anything!! Everything must be controlled by her and if it's not something we can let her control, she goes bonkers and we're so mean.

She's been hyper the past few days so I knew it was coming, I just didn't know how badly.

I sprained my ankle Sunday night and maybe going to the ER with me triggered something? I don't know.
Maybe something happened around New Years and it's triggering her? I don't know. She says not, but we found out after Thanksgiving that Thanksgiving was a trigger.

In any event, the year has barely started and I'm ready for it to be over if this behavior is indicative of how the year will be.