Is Peeper’s court date. I am hoping all goes well and that her case passes the first time. Minnow’s case didn’t, so I am hoping we get lucky this time around. We shoud travel 4-5 weeks after our court date. Exciting.
Okay. I will get back to my school work.
I absolutely love being a mom. Yes, before you ask, this blog post is a complete procrastination ploy. Minnow is such an amazing child. I know, like all mom’s don’t say that. But it is true. He is awesome. He asks to go to bed–for every nap (if we are home) and every night. When he is ready, he looks at Hubby and I and says “upstairs.” Okay. Who am I to argue. We were upstairs playing this morning and about 15 minutes ago he stood at his crib and said “please up momma.” So, I put him in bed and he is currently reading–I can hear him–but is going to take his nap. This is an early nap for him, but he was up before 7.
I just love the fact that he is able to determine when it is time to go to bed. I think it has made it a lot easier on us as parents to allow him to get to decide. We don’t have a lot of bedtime struggles. Sometimes he is ready at 8 and other times not until 9. I am pretty sure he understands that he can make the decision, so he makes it and does well with it.
I am sure this is not normal for a 2 year-old. And I am pretty confident that we are in for a rude awakening with our next child. We’ll see. Maybe we will be lucky and be blessed with two easy children. I almost said perferct children–but all children are perfect.
So, what amazing things do your children do?
My baby bro finished his first Ultra Marathon (31 miles) in under 5 hours–4:59:16 to be exact. I had a great time, even though I was only gone for a little over 24 hours. It was a nice bonding experience and my brother really appreciated that I would literally fly out for the day to cheer him one.
I had high hopes of getting some school work done…didn’t happen. I spent just over 5 hours in the beautiful Colorado sun cheering these crazy runners on. My face is a shade of red I haven’t seen in a long time. I didn’t think about sun screen–I mean it’s only April. On the bright side, I have a nice base burn for my trip to New Orleans.
I am also up to my eyeballs in school work. I have lots of projects due and lots of papers to grade and did I mention, I am going out of town this weekend? I am overworked and totally under compensated–in all departments of life.
I cannot wait til May 5th and then I get to walk in my Master’s robe and hood across the stage on May 11th. I’m excited to be done with this phase. Of course the PhD phase is going to be long, but it opens up so many more doors across the country.
I will try and post before I leave for New Orleans, but can’t guarantee it, as I am so frickin’ busy. Otherwise I will fill you in on my fun girls weekend.
Hope life is treating you all well.
I’m going to Denver tomorrow with my baby brother who is running his first ultra-marathon (31 miles). He had been planning to go by himself and I felt really bad. I wanted to be able to go and support him but am already going out of town next weekend with my bff and we don’t really have the disposable income we use to when I was employed and didn’t have any children. My brother and I have had a bit of a rough time lately–I got really mad at him for something that wasn’t really that big of a deal and I went a little off the handle. We talked about it and admitted the hurt that both of us felt, so for me to say I was shocked when he came by yesterday to tell me that he would pay for my trip if I still wanted to come and cheer him on and support him.
It meant so much to me. Hubby of course was awesome about the whole thing and is going to work from home tomorrow so that I can go. I will be gone only 26 hours, but I am looking forward to being there for my brother and am happy that he would want me to be there for him. So tomorrow afternoon I leave and I come back Saturday evening. I have tons of school work to do before Monday and Wednesday but family is more important.
I haven’t been to Denver before, but I certainly don’t think that I will get to see much of it this trip. My bro’s run is a loop so I won’t have to travel too much so cheer him on and this should allow me to get some school work done while he is running. I can’t imagine running 31 miles. He is training for a 100-mile ultra-marathon that he is doing in August. He is running a 61-mile ultra-marathon in Wisconsin in June. He is absolutely insane, I think. But I love him and I am happy that I get to be there for him.
I’ll post some beautiful pics from my quick trip when I return. Wish my bro good luck.
I am working on the above three traits. I am trying to be a better person, wife, mother, daughter, etc. But really, I want to find away to fix certain issues that are and have been slowly chipping away at my self-confidence, self-esteem and overall self image.
I have written previously about my struggle with weight. It is something I have struggle with my entire life (since puberty). I was lucky that growing up–I was really athletic and trim. But during my teen years the weight slowly crept on–even with all the soccer I played. I didn’t know then like I do now that this weight gain was caused in part (because I can’t lay blame outside of myself completely) by PCOS. I, like many other girls, were often at odds with my mother and my weight was often an issue. I was young when she first started in on me about my weight–14 maybe (once the effects of the PCOS started showing up). I was never perfect enough for my mother–never. I rejected all things my mother said and tried to get me to do–I wouldn’t wear make-up (unless forced or coerced with peer pressure–it was the 80’s big hair and big make-up reigned supreme in my teen years) and I ate what I wanted. It was all part of my rebellion at a young girl against a mother I resented–I won’t get into all the reasons for that resentment.
I also started to immensely and painfully dislike myself. This stemmed from a boyfriend (first really serious boyfriend–I was 15/16) who was abusive both emotionally and physically. He was also my first (and I didn’t choose for him to be). Somethings are still hard to write. I’ll get there…Maybe. This event really hurt me emotionally because his best friend was my bff’s boyfriend and talk got back to me about how bad I was in bed. Seriously–when you don’t want it and didn’t ask for it and repeatedly said no–I would think you tend not to be into it. I just wanted it to be over. But because of the abuse he inflicted upon me I felt as though I should have been “better” and much to my surprise, I still wanted him to “love” me. I know sad and pathetic. I was 16 and had been abused. Unless you have been there, you don’t understand the inability to think straight. I thought it was just the way it was.
This event snowballed and I spent lots of time trying to prove that I was “good” when I wanted to have sex. I became that girl–you know the one all the girls who weren’t having sex in high school talked about. I was smart in someways–as I never “hooked” up with any of the kids from my own school, so no one at school–except for my closest friends–knew I was that girl. Needless to say, I was really fucked-up in high school and throughout my early twenties. I drank too much, slept with too many people and slowly gained too much weight.
The weight piled on and I was still searching for someone to show me what love was. And of course I was looking in all the wrong places. At some point–I was in a relationship–I decided that it was time to finally tackle all the weight that I had put on–I weight 189 lbs at that point. I lost 25 lbs and was very happy with the way I looked. I will never be one of those stick thin types and will probably never in my life weigh less than 150lbs–I have a lot of lean muscle and am happy with that.
I met hubby then–at the lowest weight I had been in a while and I had worked really hard to get there. I stopped working out after I had been with hubby for about a year. I was hard to balance, working out, work, relationship and school. I gave up working out. The weight slowly started piling back on as I was eating bite for bite with my 6’5 man. I am not 6’5…I am not even 5’6. By the time I was ready to walk down the aisle I was weighing in over 200 lbs. That is where I stayed until I finally was mortified that I was going to push out of my size 20–no that is not a typo. I finally committed to the gym and getting in shape. I got down to a size 14 and was below 200 lbs for the first time in over 7 years. I felt great about life and was on track to hit my goal in just a few more months.
Then Minnow came home and I could only focus on him and the weight quickly crept back on–just as fast as I had lost it. I stopped exercising or paying any attention to what I was putting in my body. I still struggle with self-esteem and self-confidence. I still worry (without cause) that I am not good enough to keep a man and to have a man love me for me. Even though my hubby does, I don’t. That is what matter. I have finally gotten to a point where I realize that I matter and I am worth it. I deserve to be happy and I deserve to feel good about myself.
I teach my students that who they are is not determined by what happens to them, but by how they react and what they learn. I have learned that I am not responsible for the way that others treat me. I have learned that I am worthy of love and that I can love myself.
I have committed to allow myself to become the person I am meant to be. I have the resolve to work hard at becoming that person and the strength to move those things that get in my way out of the way.
Thank you for listening…
Embracing Imperfection 