Further into our conversation, I tried to remind David of all his wonderful qualities, “you’re creative, you have a big heart…” David interrupted me, rolled his eyes and said, “I know all that Mom. You gave me that speech last week.” Oops.

We both laughed pretty loud after David reminded me of my tendency to rerun speeches. Oh well… sometimes in parenting, we hit home runs, sometimes we strike out and sometimes we’re the 7th inning stretch entertainment.

Blessings on your day, wherever you are!

“Who is it?”  Ana’s voice sounded frustrated.

I opened the door and walked in to find her bouncing from the bed to the wall, making exasperated “uhh” sorts of noises.

“Honey, what is the matter now?”  

(Parental aside, I shouldn’t have said “now.”  Ana, however, is making forays into pre-adolescent mood swing territory, I’m pretty sure.  Scenes like the following have become somewhat common around here.  I let my frustration get the better of me, may God forgive me!)

“I can’t put my earrings in without looking in the mirror.  Lily can do it, but I can’t.”  Ana flung herself on the bed in exasperation.  

“Sweetheart, that can take years to learn.  You’ve only been able to take out and put in your earrings for a week.  And, in the whole grand scheme of life, it’s really not a big deal if you can’t get your earrings in without looking in the mirror.  I know it seems like the most important thing to you in the world right now, but when you’re a bit older, you will realize that it’s not.  I promise.”

“But Moooommmm.  I feel like a baby.”

“Oh, Ana.  Please don’t be so hard on yourself.  I’ve been hard on myself my entire life and now I’m just a little bit crazy.  You don’t want to end up crazy like me, do you?”

A smile crept onto her face.  Inwardly, I’m thinking, “thank God I broke through.”

“But you’re the good kind of crazy Mom.”

The good kind of crazy.  I guess coming from my 9 year old, I can take that as a compliment.

Speaking of crazy, over the last several weeks, I have been thinking about disorders I may or may not possess, particularly in the area of food.  Since last August, I have lost about 35 pounds, give or take a few.  After David was born, I lost most of the weight I had gained with both kids, with the exception of about 10 pounds.  Once we gave away our dog and daily walks became less of a necessity, I gained a little weight and it stayed steady for a couple of years, then I gained a little more, my husband was laid off and my life turned upside down and I gained a lot more.  

Last August, I weighed as much as I did when I was pregnant with the kids, not my heaviest mind you, which I hit my senior year in college at 192 pounds, according to a weight watcher’s scale, but 184.  What really frightened me was that I had gained 14 pounds in one year, which seemed like quite a lot.  Additionally, I was also suffering from plantar fasciitis and my feet ached all day long.

At that point, I decided to take some action.  It stood to reason that if my feet hurt like they did when I was heavily pregnant, that if I took off some of the weight I had gained they would feel better.  But this is and was scary territory for me and not the first time I had ventured down the weight loss road.  In college, I joined weight watchers in my senior year to lose the 50ish pounds I had gained since starting school. 

When I look back at that time and the subsequent years when I was in graduate school, I can see that I had a very controlling attitude towards food.  I literally measured strawberries in a cup to make sure that I was getting the “right” amount.  If I ate too much one day, I would exercises 2 or three times the next day to make sure I didn’t gain any weight.  If I was sick, I did not skip a workout.  Pretty scary when you think about it.  My weight actually went down to about 134 pounds, which according to all the charts is an acceptable weight for someone as tall as me.  Looking back at pictures it looks a bit on the too thin side.

At any rate, entering into the world of weight loss was a little scary for me.  I didn’t want to go into that state of being ridiculously controlling about food again.  Clearly, I eat for emotional reasons, stress and/or sadness.  What’s better than a hot fudge sundae after a ridiculous day at work?  But I knew I had to do something, particularly because of the physical symptoms I was experiencing, and that it would be easier to lose weight now, rather than later when my metabolism could take a nose dive.

Rather than joining weight watchers, I found a free calorie count site on the web, and started entering food.  I focused on making sure I got a decent amount of exercise.  And I tried to have the right attitude, ie, not freaking out if I ate a little too much one day and not compensating for it by working out excessively the next day.  I did not exercise when I was sick and I did not track calories on the weekend.

But folks, it’s scary.  On one hand because I worked so hard to lose weight (it ain’t easy when you’re in your upper 30’s, have a full time job and a family to fit in exercise).  When I’m sick and not exercising, I worry about gaining weight.  When I eat “off plan” I worry about gaining weight.  I’ve managed to maintain my goal weight within 3 pounds since April, but emotionally, it still feels touch and go.  If the scale goes up one week, I have to talk myself down off an emotional ledge of panic.  I’ve gotten better, I think,  but that panicky feeling remains, and I wonder if it will always be there.

And I hate, hate, hate that so much of my personal self worth still seems to come from a number on a scale.  It’s truly ridiculous.  Not that it’s bad to feel somewhat proud about losing this weight, but really, if it went up 10 pounds would I suddenly be a “bad” person.  No, but my feet might hurt, and that is reality.  I need food to survive, also reality.  Hot fudge sundaes and obsessively counting calories don’t make all of life’s disappointments disappear.  Reality bites.  

The calorie count website I currently use has forums and I tend to read them here and there. I’m not alone in this journey of figuring out how to eat properly.  The following article was posted and I think it’s a worthy read if weight is something you struggle with.  It’s quite frightening to think about what our society has made of eating.  As humans, we used to eat to survive.  Now that it’s not so difficult to get food, it’s become something else… status symbol, God, maybe even a dysfunctional family member.  At any rate, check it out if you have a few minutes.

http://www.self.com/fooddiet/2008/04/eating-disorder-risk

I hope my friends out in blogland don’t struggle with these issues, as I do.  But if you do, may God grant you (and me) peace.

When I had finally managed to remove both earrings, Ana was thrilled.  “That’s so cool!  I have holes in my ears.  Wow!”  She’s borrowing a pair of my hoop earrings until we can get her a pair of her own. After she put the first “new” earring in, she exclaimed,  “Wow… it just pokes right through!”  In the midst of all the excitement Ana managed to drop one of her starter earrings down the bathroom sink.  These were the earrings she was going to “keep forever.”  At least she has one left.  I don’t have either of mine.

And so we now have “before earrings,” and “after earrings” in Ana’s life.

I think however we will soon be having another before and after bookmark.

For quite some time, David has been telling me that he loved me “ever since I was in Daddy’s egg.”  I thought he had a rudimentary knowledge of sperm when he mentioned this.  We’ve talked about how babies were made but we’ve never quite connected point A to point B, if you know what I mean.

Last night, sitting on the couch, David asked me how many babies were in each egg.  I, kind of puzzled at this question  answered, “There is one baby in each egg,”  thinking perhaps now wouldn’t be a good time to talk about chromosomes.

“Well,” David answered, “If I get married when I grow up, I’m going to have two children because I have two eggs and there’s a wall in between.”

If you’re thinking what I’m thinking about his personal revelation then we are probably thinking the same thing.  We need to have the expanded making babies talk from point A to point B.  I didn’t think this would be necessary quite so soon… but life has continually happened on a course different from the one I envisioned.  So be it.  And we will soon have the “before the talk,” and “after the talk” placeholder…

Blessings…

Today, after several years of becoming reacquainted with bike riding, it finally happened.  I fell.  I was actually heading towards the home stretch of my ride today, which happens to take me through a parking lot with speed bumps.  I don’t like to take my bike over speed bumps so I cut the front tire to the right to avoid it…but I cut it a little too far.

Realizing quickly that I wasn’t going to be able to compensate in the other direction to miss a curb, I threw my hands up into the air and attempted to leap off the bike as much as possible and, wah bam, pretty much face planted right into a decorative bush which happened to planted in the median strip where I now found myself.

Sometimes life is like that, right.  Going a long, everything fine, you swerve to avoid an obstacle and wham…face plant!

I stood up quickly, laughed at my ever present lack of grace and inspected my body for injuries.  I only had small cuts on the palm of one hand and the opposite knee.  Fortunately, my face seemed to have landed in a sweet spot of the bush that left me with both of my eyes and no other facial orifices invaded or injured.  I picked myself and the bike up, thanked God that I wasn’t hurt or that someone hadn’t come along to take advantage of me in a vulnerable moment, and went on my merry way to descend my favorite hill…the one that makes me feel like I’m flying.

I hope your day starts a little more smoothly…

I was in band and chorus up until junior high school when I had to choose one or the other and chose band.  My instrument was the clarinet.  Fortunately for my parents, I never practiced around the house a whole lot.  I managed to squeak by in class somehow.  I’m sure my teachers never noticed…really.

This was an interesting concert as the band teacher actually played an instrument with his students.  When it was the “orchestra’s” turn to play, he picked up a violin and accompanied them.  I guess there weren’t enough violins, or they needed a strong player to follow.  It happened when the horns played by themselves except that  Mr. Band teacher played a trumpet this time.  No one seemed to think that this was strange, It must happen every year. 

The chorus did an admirable job as well.  We were in a huge auditorium so it was a little hard to hear, but they followed their teacher’s direction and sang well.  I give anyone credit who choses to work musically with squirmy elementary aged students.  It must take a stout heart!!

There was a gentleman in the audience who was a very active supporter of all the musical performance.  He clapped loudest, longest and added a few vocalizations to his support.  I couldn’t help thinking that he must be the favorite uncle or grandpa in that family…the one who tells you you’re beautiful even when your a 14 year old spotty and slightly chubby kid.  Thank God for these angels in our lives.  He made my day last night! 

At any rate, the kids did do a good job. I am also very thankful for my parents and all the concerts they sat through when I was growing up.  Hopefully by the time I was in junior high, the quality of the performances had improved.  Still, they had to get me there and now that I am entering the Mom’s taxi service years of parenthood, I am ever more thankful for my parents and all they endured in raising me.

So opens, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. It’s an interesting thought.  I’ve only just begun the book, so I’m not sure how this opening sentence might play out in the rest of the story, but I have thought about that idea quite a bit. Happy families are all alike. Do I know of any families I can say are truly, “happy.”  Maybe, but I think in modern times we have this idea of functional vs. Dysfunctional. I’m not sure that’s the best classification since there are now talk show hosts making their livings by saving “dysfunctional” families in neat 60 minute segments. This is probably why I don’t like talk shows.

I wonder what even makes a happy family?

At any rate, I lucked into finding a copy of Anna Karenina and Great Expectations at our local thrift store and paid only $1.41 minus 25% for each one. Both are in excellent condition. I finished War and Peace in December, loved it, and figured I ought to give Anna a try. Leo Tolstoy is an amazing writer who somehow has the ability to make his writing feel like you have a window seat into each character’s mind.

I also like the Orthodox-ness inherent in the story telling. Characters say, “Lord have mercy,” cross themselves and each other. I can relate to these characters in a way that I can’t relate to some others (like those in my beloved Jane Austen books) because we share this religion, this way of life. The Orthodox-ness in the books is not preachy. Tolstoy isn’t trying to convert anyone. It’s just there, in the story. I love it.

I wonder why such stories aren’t written by modern novelists. Are there any modern Orthodox novelists who allow this way of life to be part of their characters? And I think maybe I ought to write one (I started a while back) but I was afraid my writing might read like one of those, Left Behind, novels and that’s what I don’t want. I think I need to be Orthodox for a few more years before I might be able to write such a story.

And then there is always, time. Do I have time to write a book when I mostly feel as though I kiss my husband and children good bye in the morning only to turn around and kiss them good night in the evening without much interaction in between. I try to be a good wife and a mother, but I often can’t help feeling a bit of a failure.  Trying to write a much of anything beyond these occasional blog posts in that space feels selfish. I’d love for my life to be different. I’m sure most of us on earth feel that way at some point or another. But I also think most of us are doing the best we can.

Speaking of happy families…

Blessings…