Weight Loss Journey #1

I feel like I'm always in some sort of weight loss journey. I'll lose some weight and then just put it back on in like a week and the cycle repeats itself. After Ali's birth, I lost about 30 pounds from pregnancy weight, water weight and working out like a freakin' crazy person because seriously, my postpartum body scared the shit out of me. My stomach literally looked like a deflated balloon. I remember confiding in Jarod and heart-brokenly telling him that I don't think my body will ever look the same again unless I get plastic surgery and he took one look at me and was like well, if you want to then we'll save up for it (in a really supportive but I'll realllly support that for you [haha] kind of way). My body was really not pretty. No joke.

Thankfully, I ate really healthy, did cardio every day, did Jillan Michael's 30 day shred a few times a week as well as an 8 minute abs app on my iPhone religiously and I got down to 138 pounds and everything (for the most part) came back together (as much as a woman's body that's had three kids in less than four years can get).

And then I kind of just stopped. Worked out again here or there. And then ate a LOT again here and there; such a bad cycle.

My problem is that I'm a five-hundred-pound woman inside of this body of mine. I love food so, so much but I need to stop being so attached to food. I want and need to be healthier. I want to be fit and really comfortable in my body.

My overall goal is to get down to anywhere from 120 to 130. I want to focus less on my actual weight and more on eating healthy and being strong and fit. Currently, (or at least the last time I weighed myself about two weeks ago) I weighed in at 145.

Jarod and I are in our fifth week of Insanity workouts but this last week I've finally and really made it an effort to eat healthier and oh my, that makes such a big difference!

Sadly, I never took pre-Insanity pictures but here's a pic that depicts me when I'm at that stage where I'm eating a ton, sooo basically, like every day (up until recently! :)

This was New Year's Eve 2011 and that's my bright pink bra. Thankyouverymuch.

And here are some pictures I took three days ago:

Awkward-looking pic. Am I suppose to smile here?? I wasn't really sure, so I went for the confused, dumb and slightly constipated look instead. Result: Absolute Perfection.

So here's to being healthy!! But can I just say, ohh,  my gosh, this is so hard! I literally daydream about all the delicious food that I want to put in my mouth so for now, I just try to take it one meal at a time. Also, helpful tip: I can't eat unhealthy because I just do NOT buy it at the grocery store anymore and yes, there are definitely times that I scurry the kitchen looking for some long-lost Twinkie but alas, it's never there and I eat a freakin' apple instead.

Also, if you're blogging about weight loss, please let me know!! I'd love to follow :)

Stay At Home Mom vs Working Mom Part 2

This is the second half of a two-part blog so if you haven't read Part One, you should :)

Later that day, I arrived at my brother’s for dinner and my boys were still fast asleep. Aiden hasn’t taken a nap in - ohh, goodness, I can’t even remember the last time. I figured they just had a late night with the cousins and a life without naps just caught up to him. Also, I absolute hate waking up either one of my boys because an interruption in their sleep somehow equates to the devil awakening in their little handsome bodies. My brother suggested waking them up so they could play and I immediately negated that silly notion. What? Crazy!! After Tristen had been up for awhile and I glanced at the time reveal a late 5:00pm (for a nap!), did I decide to try to wake Aiden up.

At first touch, I immediately noticed that his little body was burning up. I had never felt such a high fever before. My brother’s fiance took his temperature and it was 105 degrees F. I quickly gave him some Tylenol to lower his temperature. Jarod and my brother’s fiance tried talking to him while I Googled dangerous temperatures for children, even though I already knew that the temperature was much too high.

We waited a few minutes. I was hoping that it would lower itself but it wasn’t going down enough. It lingered at the higher end of 104. Aiden’s eye rolled back in his socket, the light of life laid listlessly in his eyes and his answers to any of our questions were reciprocated by off-the-wall answers.

I asked him what his name was.

No response.

I asked him how old he was.

No response.

And when I went to the bathroom, Jarod and my brother’s fiance asked him if he was hungry.

After a few moments, he replied yes and when asked what he wanted to eat he pointed to the light fixture on the wall and then towards my brother’s fiance’s chest. They laughed but at the same time, we all grew worried.

First and foremost, no, I don’t breastfeed my four-year-old and I promise nor will I ever do so.

However, all of this was scaring the crap out of Jarod and I. We both started worrying about irreversible brain-damage. I knew that he would live but the very possibility that he wouldn’t reach his own capabilities, his own intelligence because of this, was devastating.

We rushed him to the Emergency Room, which thankfully was only a few minutes away. They checked him in, gave him more medicine, lowered his temperature to a more respectful temp and concluded that he had strep throat and the flu. Our baby came back to life. It’s astonishing how different he was with a high temperature in comparison to how he acted immediately after his temperature lowered.

In all honesty, I shed a few tears of relief and happiness in the hospital. Sometimes I think how irrational it is to have children. We give so much of ourselves, including all the material, tangible items in this world, but even more than that, we consciously decide to love someone so much that their own well-being overshadows our own.

Me and my Aids (Christmas 2010).

I believe Elizabeth Stone hit it on the head when she said that, “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

I hate to think of myself as someone that has to have a bad event remind me of what’s really important in life. I strive to be a person that finds happiness in simplicity as well as a person that doesn’t take a single thing for granted.

I love my children so very much and I do miss the parts of me that don’t include them but I, truly, wouldn’t be anything without them.

I’m a Gemini, which is symbolized by twins, by two people and subsequently, there is always a contradictory, corresponding desire to every single thought, idea, whim and action to me. I want the best of each world. I want to have a fulfilling, successful professional life and I want to be a stay-at-home-mom but I, simply cannot have both.

And the truth is, I really don’t want both. I want exactly what I have. I want this.

My babies on Easter 2012 :)

Stay At Home Mom vs Working Mom

Friday morning I woke up to a home without boys - Jarod had taken off to work and Aiden and Tristen had spent the night at their cousin's house. The day before Aiden had a slight fever and just wanted to lay in my bed and cuddle, which is a very rare thing for that boy. I gave him some medicine for the fever and thought nothing of it. My brother said he didn't mind if Aiden came over with a bit of a cold so I agreed to bring them over.

The house was eerily quiet. I'm use to a very talkative four-year-old and the babbles, that I can 95% of the time make out into real, authentic words, of a two-year-old filling my ears at all times. I got Ali out of her crib and cuddled and held her more than I would on an average day. The house was an absolute mess because I was too tired the night before and figured that I could easily get it all done without the incessant demands and needs of my two little boys but then the mess and the redundancy of my every day life annoyed me.

I'm so tired. I should be doing more with my life.

There's an almost tangible battle within myself that yearns for a life of professionalism and career-climbing. Of a life in which work is immediately exchanged for valued currency. Of which time belongs, although to my employer but, simultaneously my own. A life in which peeing in the bathroom and changing one's clothes in privacy can easily force an overwhelming sense of guilt and the incessant urgency to fix things (whatever they may be) immediately mid-stream when one child is crying.

Also, a life in which people don't belittle, unintentionally or not, your life because it's a simpler path. A simpler dream.

Conversely, the very thought of leaving my children alone with a daycare provider and even my own mother in exchange for 40-hour weeks and dry-clean clothes aches my heart to no end. I will no longer be there for those first; they'll belong in someone elses' memory and in some other time and place of which would be lost from me forever. I wouldn't know the odd quirks of my children so deeply. That "chicken" actually means "tuck-in" to Tristen. That Ali will scream her head off at times because her little heart just desires some Cheerios (seriously, she's nuts - definitely not my daughter :) Nor would I know how much of a freak, utter clean-freak, Aiden is (the kid loves flossing his teeth - anyone else think that's weird??).

I love being with them and sharing all of our moments together but there are definitely times that I think about being somewhere else. Maybe just for a bit to regain a part of myself that isn't defined by three little things that came out of my uterus, a part of myself that's always been there but has been pushed willingly, and other days grudgingly, aside.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

TTC #1 for Baby #4

Previously, I had set an appointment for a second Depo shot on April 12th but then we officially decided we were, for sure (this time ;) going to have a fourth baby so I cancelled my appointment and we are currently not using any form of protection. Would I piss my pants if I were to be pregnant right this moment?? Absolutely, from sheer excitement :D

However, I know it can take up to six months to a year for the lingering hormones from the shot to leave a woman's body in order for her be pregnant again. So damn.

Because of the Depo shot, I'm forced to just . . . wait. And oh my goodness, that's probably the hardest thing in the world for me to do. I like to drive myself crazy in order to feel as if I have some sort of control; I like to take my temperature every morning, pee on ovulation strips, analyze the BBT chart for even the slightest inclination of an ovulation and/or an implantation dip, have a stomach-ache from the burger I had from lunch and then completely convince myself that I am definitely pregnant because of the stomach pains, etc., etc.

I go really extreme when we're trying to conceive, which is so odd because that's really unlike myself ;) Iiiii (uhh) have no idea where that comes from.

Soooo we're waiting; waiting for my body to start ovulating again.

I'm definitely so excited to have a little one inside of me again. I'm excited for all of the fun stuff of pregnancy: feeling the baby move, little hiccups and finding out the gender but I'm really so happy and content with our little family, at this very moment. I know there will be a place and time when our family will expand to a family of six but for now, I'm really loving our family of five.

But noteworthy is the fact that every time I have gotten pregnant I've been in a really happy, content place with my life and I was working out and concentrating on being healthy. Annnd I'm on week four of Insanity workouts and my booty is definitely a lot tighter than it used to be.

Actual conversation we had last night:

Me: Does my body look different?

Husband: Yah, you're a lot fitter. It's like a completely different world now.

Me (joking): Huh, what?? What kind of world was it before??!

Husband: Hahaaha

Me (joking): You're such a jerk.

My point is that "different world bodies" (hahah, such an ass) can somehow equate to babies being born. Idon'tknowhow. But sometimes it happens :)

But again, the fucking Depo shot is still fuckin' with my body so I'm . . . . . waaaiting.

Fair warning: my TTC #2 for Baby #4 blog may just be something like, "I'm on my PERIOD!!!! YAY!!" haha so just don't read TTC blogs from me if you don't want this kind of graphic information and/or just stop reading my blog if you don't want crazy :)

Just Write: Parenting & Google

Note: I'm intentionally being incredibly vague about the actions of my child (and I'm not even going to tell you which one this story's about) because it's personal, they're a person too and one day they may read this and hate me for posting it. But I think the actions of Jarod and I are funny enough to share and to anyone who thinks we're good parents who know what we're doing, this will disprove any silly notion you had.

"JJ!!!"

"What?!" running over to me.

"(Name of child insert here and) (insert vague, crazy thing this child may or may not do here) did this! What. The. FUCK!"

Jarod looked straight in the eye and since we were in front of our kids' room (they all share a room), turned his back on me and started cracking up so hard he couldn't breathe.

"Hahhhahaha."

"What do I do? What do I say?" in absolute horror and confusion I probed my husband who was currently dying through laughter, "Go talk to (them)!"

"Hold on. I need to compose myself. Hahahhahah."

"Seriously, what the fuck? Is this normal?!?!"

"I don't know. Go google it."

Jarod walked into the kids' room, I grabbed the iPad and frantically typed in our situation in Google and in less than one minute, I jumped up and yelled to Jarod, "It's normal! It's normal!!"

The point to this little story: 1) Truly, honestly we have no idea what we're doing here and truly and honestly, how did anybody parent without Google??

If you feel sorry for our kids that they have us a parents, please click below to vote for this blog! :)

How We Agreed to Have a Fourth

Us, pre-babies.

I've always wanted a large family. We never really talked about the number of children we would have in the beginning (granted, we got married four months after our first date - I'm not even sure if I knew his last name at that point ha! :) but Jarod with stars in his eyes and a Cupid's arrow shot straight up his ass, loving and with devote seriousness told me from the very beginning I, "could have as many children as I wanted." He probably thought his sweet, generous notion would be promptly reciprocated with and, "aww, you're so sweet! I love you," and later, with the birth of a mere two children.

Bahhahhhahhah.

After Ali's birth, we fought a LOT about having a fourth. If you've been following this blog from the beginning, I'm sure you know all about it and if you're just starting out, then our stupidity arguments can surely be found (have fun :P and also, yes, we're F'ing crazy; thank you very much).

Aiden, Tristen, Ali and me <3

With three children and Jarod working long hours, there most certainly were days weeks where I was certain that three was more than enough for us and I was glad to be done. So we made arrangements, I went to the doctor's for the Depo shot and we even scheduled Jarod an appointment for a vasectomy. I started giving away our baby clothes and baby items that we were no longer using (thankfully, they're still in the family so they can be passed back). I was mentally and physically removing newborn baby-ness from our home.

But the yearning for another baby in the future and the desire to fill my uterus with an itty-bitty baby started creeping in, to which I promptly slapped away. No, I'm done! I would tell myself.

But the desire was still there.

I think as we started creeping closer and closer to the vasectomy date something inside, I believe it's called my uterus, started panicking and and this maternal urge became stronger than seven tequila shots on a Kate Moss body.

I started half-jokingly, but will all seriousness, asking the hubby if we could have another. He would look at me in disbelief and say, "are you serious?!"

There have been a number of talks that I've shared on here as well as conversations I've kept private about our decision for another. About three weeks ago, I finally told Jarod that I was done and that we were done have kids. I still had the yearning for another but I rationalized that those feelings would always be there because it's always been my dream to be a mother and some things you just need to rationally push aside. The biggest reason I pushed these feelings away was because I had a husband who seemed utterly done with having more children.

Then, the other day as Jarod asked me how old Ali was, to which I replied she was turning 9 months this month, I got a bit teary-eyed at the idea of my baby turning one so very soon. I stared out the window thinking about how fast time goes by and how babies grow up even faster. Jarod took one look at me, pitied my little, sad soul and said, "I'm going to do something really crazy."

"What?"

"You already know," he replied with smile, "we can have another baby."

"Really?!" was the first thing I said and the second was, "you're not going to change your mind again, are you??"

And after he reassured me he wouldn't, I let the excitement and happiness creep back in. I know there are many people, especially in this day and age, that think we're absolute insane for actually wanting a fourth child. To which I say, I think you're insane for not. Sure, they're a handful some almost every day but I can think of much worse things than having a house full of little feet, laughter and love.

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Just Write: Young & Married

As far back as my memory allows my consciousness to recall, I have always wanted to be in a deeply loving and committed relationship. I never wanted to date around and see what's "out there." And thank goodness for that, because from my glassed-in protective shield I like to call a wedding band as well as (and possibly, ehh, even more glaringly noticeable) three very young children screaming, yelling and basically, bringing overall "joy" into their immediate proximity (is that not appealing to men anymore?! so weird), can I just say that, "I am really glad I'm happily taken by a normal, wonderful, amazing guy."

I am truly really glad I'm in the relationship I'm in and if I wasn't, I would be looking for exactly everything that I have.

But with that said, I got married really, really young as in, like, right after high school. I didn't get to share an obnoxiously small dorm room with a Birkenstock, tie-dyed hippy roommate. I didn't get to study abroad in Europe for a semester. I never got to blow waste spend a whole paycheck on something absolutely ridiculous and completely devoid of responsibility. There's so much I didn't get to do.

However, I don't regret anything or how everything played out because this is how the cards fell and these are the choices we made. With all that was happening around us as well as (and more importantly,) the way Jarod and I felt about each other, we chose love.

. . . and also, marriage and responsibilities and full-time jobs and bills and adulthood, etc., etc., etc.

I guess, my point to this whole non-sense of a blog is that the grass is always deceptively greener on the other side. I wish I could tell the younger me to stop stressing about finding "the one" because he's literally right around the corner of your high school graduation.

And to my sweet Ali (especially if you turn out to be anything like me),

Do not worry your pretty little head about boys. There will be one, not a boy, but a man who won't let anything stop you two from being together and he will love you with such kindness that you will cry with tears of happiness at the mere thought. I hope you worry less about boys and focus on learning the intricacies of tie-dying and enjoying food from a foreign land. But whenever the day comes that you have a found such a man (be it when you are 15 or 45), I hope you remember that the grass is always greener on the side you water the most.

I Love You More Than the Whole Wide World,

Your Mommy

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