Holy cow! Had my first (second) run this week and boy did it kick my assets! My time is still pretty good, about 11:30 per mile, but it hurts like hell and I am walking way more than I'd like. It is very true what they say about a body at rest. My body fought me hard during this run today, it wanted me to quit, to walk instead of run. It was hot, and tired, and wanted to go put yoga pants on and sit around watching tv. My head, thank goodness, was having none of that! "Push, you can do it! You're almost done, just a little further!" Running is 75% mental! (for me anyhow) and I am thankful my head won that round!
It has been a rough road getting back into a normal workout routine, I am so used to this new "schedule" that it's been difficult to get out of this rut. But I am just tired of feeling like crap, tired of being tired all the time, tired of being bitchy and mean! So run I must and run I will! I even bought myself some fancy running pants! And they rock! Didn't move, ride up, slip down, did not need to be adjusted at all! Thank you dearly Old Navy for your awesome Active line! If you need workout pants, I recommend the active line 100% ( I also live in the fold-over yoga pants, seriously comfy!) I wish I was getting paid to plug them...Ahem...Old Navy...???
The goal for now is to just ease back into working out, I'm obviously going to have to take it slow as I did in the beginning, because 2.5 months off had a huge impact on my body and I've lost a lot of ground. It is discouraging to have lost so much progress (2 miles worth to be exact) but all I can do is battle it out harder. Stay positive and stay focused, I have a goal in mind to reach before I get pregnant and I have goals that will still need to be met once pregnant. I have to do the work now so it will benefit me later! Plus I'm feeling all kinds of awesome post-run over here, that should be motivation enough for me to keep going!
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
I win?
This is the story of how I won the argument for having another child. You see, I myself was not even convinced that we should have anymore. In fact, I had just given up on the idea. I was done. Well, I was trying to accept being done.
Anyone who knows us knows that we have been dancing around with this idea of having another child. Lucas is a very difficult, high energy little guy and my husband has a very limited amount of patience for the little ones, so in all reality, it would make sense for us to not to have any other children. Limited resources and our advancing age were also factors. I kind of knew that this was not something that was very likely.
But we do not have children for the first five years. After that, having children becomes a bit easier. They are a bit more independent, they require less one on one entertainment. But even knowing that these "fun" toddler stages will soon pass, these were not the reasons we decided to have another child.
A few nights ago, I noticed that several of Ethan's book had teeth marks on them. My first thought was that the baby was chewing on them. Well, later that day I found E chewing on one of his favorite books. Now that we are armed with the knowledge of knowing he has Autism, several memories from his infancy to now became crystal clear. He has had it all along. Everything that lead me to believe he was just a "good" baby was just the Autism. As you can imagine, I was instantly floored with my own grief. He was born this way and will be this way forever. And one day, I will not be around to protect him.
He will eventually learn to navigate in our "world" and will be able to function and appear fairly normal, if not maybe a little odd. But he will always have certain tendencies, and there will always be certain things that will be hard for him to deal with. Something that his siblings will be able to help him with when mom and dad cannot. The instant I had this thought I told my husband who, although he is hesitant, and a bit scared, agrees with me whole heartedly. These trials that we are going through now will pass and someday Chris and I (God willing, a long distance in the future) will pass on too, leaving our close knit children together to forage on without us. There is strength in numbers. Three is good. Three is strong. And three there will be! (Unless the Big Guy has other plans, like twins...)
***No, I am not currently pregnant, nor are we trying at this time, I have a few things to work on first and then, maybe in about 3-6 months we will embark on this adventure again! Also make sure you like my blog facebook page to keep up to date with any Autism, weight loss, and/or baby news?****
Anyone who knows us knows that we have been dancing around with this idea of having another child. Lucas is a very difficult, high energy little guy and my husband has a very limited amount of patience for the little ones, so in all reality, it would make sense for us to not to have any other children. Limited resources and our advancing age were also factors. I kind of knew that this was not something that was very likely.
But we do not have children for the first five years. After that, having children becomes a bit easier. They are a bit more independent, they require less one on one entertainment. But even knowing that these "fun" toddler stages will soon pass, these were not the reasons we decided to have another child.
A few nights ago, I noticed that several of Ethan's book had teeth marks on them. My first thought was that the baby was chewing on them. Well, later that day I found E chewing on one of his favorite books. Now that we are armed with the knowledge of knowing he has Autism, several memories from his infancy to now became crystal clear. He has had it all along. Everything that lead me to believe he was just a "good" baby was just the Autism. As you can imagine, I was instantly floored with my own grief. He was born this way and will be this way forever. And one day, I will not be around to protect him.
He will eventually learn to navigate in our "world" and will be able to function and appear fairly normal, if not maybe a little odd. But he will always have certain tendencies, and there will always be certain things that will be hard for him to deal with. Something that his siblings will be able to help him with when mom and dad cannot. The instant I had this thought I told my husband who, although he is hesitant, and a bit scared, agrees with me whole heartedly. These trials that we are going through now will pass and someday Chris and I (God willing, a long distance in the future) will pass on too, leaving our close knit children together to forage on without us. There is strength in numbers. Three is good. Three is strong. And three there will be! (Unless the Big Guy has other plans, like twins...)
***No, I am not currently pregnant, nor are we trying at this time, I have a few things to work on first and then, maybe in about 3-6 months we will embark on this adventure again! Also make sure you like my blog facebook page to keep up to date with any Autism, weight loss, and/or baby news?****
Monday, June 17, 2013
Recommitment ceremony
I know, you may be wondering what happened to my May/June update. It didn't happen. I never weighed myself, what with the big move and not working out and eating like crap and all. I did fall way off the wagon with this injury and even though I tried to get back in to things it just wasn't happening. So my leg is still giving me trouble, but it's manageable so I have decided to stop sitting around on my ass eating chocolate and doing nothing, I have come too far to quit now! I am getting all squishy again and while I am not 100% sure, I think I've gained back around 5 lbs. Yikes! Not completely ruined, but yikes.
It's hard, this process is hard, being injured is hard and scary. But being overweight is worse, pain is temporary! I've decided to use this week as a slow recommitment to my goals, so far it hasn't born much fruit, but I am not going to throw the towel in just yet. And this time around, I am not going to be jumping on the scale everyday. It was creating a monster and I am glad that my little devil child broke it pre-move, because while I am curious, I am not going to dwell on the number anymore. I will weigh myself at some point along the way but I have no intentions of buying a new scale anytime soon. It feels so liberating! I still plan on measuring every month because that is always a much better indicator of real "fat" loss. The numbers will fluctuate regardless, water weight, bowel movements, heavy workouts, all of those things will change your number. I know how I want to feel and how I want to look and that is going to be my goal from now on. I'll know when I get there!
So, to recommitting to the journey! I'll be starting off with 3, 2 mile runs for the next 2 weeks, mostly to familiarize myself with a new neighborhood, adding weight training in on my off running days, probably 2-3 times a week. Getting back to a healthy style of eating, most likely not counting calories but increasing fruit and veggie consumption and getting away from processed foods. I'll be trying to go as un-processed as I can for a while to re-set my body and to detox all the junk that's in there now! I'd like to touch base here on the blog every two weeks to help keep me accountable, and you know, so you guys can keep me from taking another "vacation?" Let me know how you are doing too! I know I'm not in this alone!
It's hard, this process is hard, being injured is hard and scary. But being overweight is worse, pain is temporary! I've decided to use this week as a slow recommitment to my goals, so far it hasn't born much fruit, but I am not going to throw the towel in just yet. And this time around, I am not going to be jumping on the scale everyday. It was creating a monster and I am glad that my little devil child broke it pre-move, because while I am curious, I am not going to dwell on the number anymore. I will weigh myself at some point along the way but I have no intentions of buying a new scale anytime soon. It feels so liberating! I still plan on measuring every month because that is always a much better indicator of real "fat" loss. The numbers will fluctuate regardless, water weight, bowel movements, heavy workouts, all of those things will change your number. I know how I want to feel and how I want to look and that is going to be my goal from now on. I'll know when I get there!
So, to recommitting to the journey! I'll be starting off with 3, 2 mile runs for the next 2 weeks, mostly to familiarize myself with a new neighborhood, adding weight training in on my off running days, probably 2-3 times a week. Getting back to a healthy style of eating, most likely not counting calories but increasing fruit and veggie consumption and getting away from processed foods. I'll be trying to go as un-processed as I can for a while to re-set my body and to detox all the junk that's in there now! I'd like to touch base here on the blog every two weeks to help keep me accountable, and you know, so you guys can keep me from taking another "vacation?" Let me know how you are doing too! I know I'm not in this alone!
Monday, June 10, 2013
Trials and tribulations
This was not the post I had intended to write today. I was going to tell you my usual monthly update on the goings on of the diet ( or lack thereof this previous month...) but something else entirely is weighing heavily on my heart and mind as of late.
I was pretty foolish to think that our sense of "happiness" would last very long, it never does. There is always "something" on the horizon, that old "waiting for the hat, shoe or whatever to drop" feeling. I knew that transition was a huge factor in my son's Autism. I knew that being out of school was going to be difficult for him, and that moving was also going to be difficult for him. Now, stupid us, we moved the week that E's school got out. And he was fine for about three days. And today? It feels like all of the progress we have made is gone. There are daily temper-tantrums, accidents, increased "ticks", and a near drowning (don't even ask!) As a parent, as the only parent who is around this sweet boy all day, it is completely devastating.
I remember even before I was anywhere near being married, I would pray that I would never have a kid that had any disabilities. I knew that I would not be able to handle that. (This was in my late teens, early twenties probably.) I knew that my patience was pretty thin, I knew I wanted to be a mom, more than anything, but I also had no idea how hard it was going to be. I just knew that I had a certain image of what I wanted my perfect family to look like, and kids with disabilities were not in that picture. I always thought that God granted those sweet souls to people who were stronger than me, people who could love and handle them. God obviously thinks I am a badass.
We never thought that anything was really wrong with E in the beginning. Chris and I just wrote his little ticks off as him being a bit quirky. Then his 3rd birthday rolled around the behaviors started to get progressively worse, after we had moved actually (just realized that one actually.) Doing what most parents do in that situation, we tried to write it off, thinking that nothing is wrong with him, he just is the way he is. After all, he was our first child, and we didn't want to say we knew something was not right about him because we really had no clue if something was not right or not. Maybe this is normal? We had nothing to base our theories on, no experience with any children other than our seemingly normal developing nephews, both who are very different from each other. And that's all we thought, our son is just different from other kids, as all children develop differently, behave differently, speak differently. Then he went to preschool. And again, the behaviors worsened.
Lucky for us, as I have heard many a horror story about children being expelled from multiple preschools, we were blessed so very much with a teacher who was willing to see the potential in our child, to not cast him out, to not just wash her hands of a difficult child. She worked with us in getting Ethan in a program to help him develop, she worked with him, learned his quirks, learned his tells and was able to meet his needs in every way. She truly loved our child, and after having anxiety for weeks about whether or not I was going to get phone calls about his behavior, and an exit notice, I began to trust that he was going to be just fine there after I dropped him off. We still had some bad days peppered here and there, and there were days where he didn't make it to school to save that long trip to go get him early, but he thrived. And you better believe I bawled on the last day of school. I am sure the other parents thought I was nuts, but they had no idea the battle we faced that year, and the Alli and friend I found in a preschool teacher.
But that had to come to an end, he can't stay in preschool forever! And here is where our current battle lies. What does Eth's educational future hold? What about his home life? When and how will he adjust to all of these changes? I know there are hard days ahead, days of adjusting our lives to a new home and to a more lucrative schedule, figuring out where on the spectrum E falls (we find out tomorrow) and what will happen next school year. But for now, I have to remember that the world seems very different to my sweet boy, that the way we perceive things is vastly different to how he does, and I have to accept that he will never have a normal life. There will be periods of adjustment all the time, there will be things he will have to learn to cope with, things we take for granted all the time. And I have to remember that this is not my fault, there was nothing that I could do to prevent it or stop it from happening to him. I never, ever asked for this, but it was given to me anyhow, and we will get by, by the grace of God, we will!
I was pretty foolish to think that our sense of "happiness" would last very long, it never does. There is always "something" on the horizon, that old "waiting for the hat, shoe or whatever to drop" feeling. I knew that transition was a huge factor in my son's Autism. I knew that being out of school was going to be difficult for him, and that moving was also going to be difficult for him. Now, stupid us, we moved the week that E's school got out. And he was fine for about three days. And today? It feels like all of the progress we have made is gone. There are daily temper-tantrums, accidents, increased "ticks", and a near drowning (don't even ask!) As a parent, as the only parent who is around this sweet boy all day, it is completely devastating.
I remember even before I was anywhere near being married, I would pray that I would never have a kid that had any disabilities. I knew that I would not be able to handle that. (This was in my late teens, early twenties probably.) I knew that my patience was pretty thin, I knew I wanted to be a mom, more than anything, but I also had no idea how hard it was going to be. I just knew that I had a certain image of what I wanted my perfect family to look like, and kids with disabilities were not in that picture. I always thought that God granted those sweet souls to people who were stronger than me, people who could love and handle them. God obviously thinks I am a badass.
We never thought that anything was really wrong with E in the beginning. Chris and I just wrote his little ticks off as him being a bit quirky. Then his 3rd birthday rolled around the behaviors started to get progressively worse, after we had moved actually (just realized that one actually.) Doing what most parents do in that situation, we tried to write it off, thinking that nothing is wrong with him, he just is the way he is. After all, he was our first child, and we didn't want to say we knew something was not right about him because we really had no clue if something was not right or not. Maybe this is normal? We had nothing to base our theories on, no experience with any children other than our seemingly normal developing nephews, both who are very different from each other. And that's all we thought, our son is just different from other kids, as all children develop differently, behave differently, speak differently. Then he went to preschool. And again, the behaviors worsened.
Lucky for us, as I have heard many a horror story about children being expelled from multiple preschools, we were blessed so very much with a teacher who was willing to see the potential in our child, to not cast him out, to not just wash her hands of a difficult child. She worked with us in getting Ethan in a program to help him develop, she worked with him, learned his quirks, learned his tells and was able to meet his needs in every way. She truly loved our child, and after having anxiety for weeks about whether or not I was going to get phone calls about his behavior, and an exit notice, I began to trust that he was going to be just fine there after I dropped him off. We still had some bad days peppered here and there, and there were days where he didn't make it to school to save that long trip to go get him early, but he thrived. And you better believe I bawled on the last day of school. I am sure the other parents thought I was nuts, but they had no idea the battle we faced that year, and the Alli and friend I found in a preschool teacher.
But that had to come to an end, he can't stay in preschool forever! And here is where our current battle lies. What does Eth's educational future hold? What about his home life? When and how will he adjust to all of these changes? I know there are hard days ahead, days of adjusting our lives to a new home and to a more lucrative schedule, figuring out where on the spectrum E falls (we find out tomorrow) and what will happen next school year. But for now, I have to remember that the world seems very different to my sweet boy, that the way we perceive things is vastly different to how he does, and I have to accept that he will never have a normal life. There will be periods of adjustment all the time, there will be things he will have to learn to cope with, things we take for granted all the time. And I have to remember that this is not my fault, there was nothing that I could do to prevent it or stop it from happening to him. I never, ever asked for this, but it was given to me anyhow, and we will get by, by the grace of God, we will!
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