The End of Another Year

I almost didn't blog tonight.  But then I reread my blog post from New Year's Eve 2012 and just had to.  I'm going to take some excerpts from it and throw them into relief with what I was doing/thinking tonight, 6 years later.

"Anyway!  As you may or may not be aware, anorexia is a lifestyle.  Honestly.  For someone entrenched, or at least as entrenched as I am, it is a lifestyle.  It influences every decision you make.  Every thought you think.  Everything you see and do is stitched with anorexia.  It never leaves your mind.  Never ever ever."

This is still somewhat true but on a much, much smaller scale (no pun intended).  The thoughts don't really ever go away entirely but now they are more of a soft murmur from somewhere kind of far away than a scream in the ear.  My hunger is louder than my eating disorder.

"At the end of every one of those years except 2004, I was hating my body.  This year is no different.  I have accomplished a lot of things in 2012.  Made a lot of good friends.  Lost a few friends.  Gained some new family.  Lost some family.  Tried new things.  Went new places.  Got better.  Got sicker.  Over all it was a good year."

Overall this year was good too.  I accomplished a lot.  Made new friends.  Found new communities.  Got a new job.  Tried new things.  Got stronger.

"What am I thinking about?  I'm thinking about how fat my thighs are and how I can get rid of my love handles that I hate so much and what angle is most flattering for a picture."

While I can't say that I'm 100% at peace with my body, I'm a lot more affectionate towards it than I was back then.  Now I've seen what it's truly capable of and it amazes me.  Never did I imagine, back then, that I'd be sitting in my room, writing a blog post while listening to my four year old downstairs having her first sleepover with a friend and periodically flicking my eyes over to the baby monitor on the bedside table to check on my one year old as he sleeps peacefully in his crib, while my dog snores at my feet.  My body is tired from teaching a class at 5:45 in the morning (which I do three mornings a week) and also from taking a boxing class on Saturday and again tonight (another thing which I never thought I'd be doing).  

I mean... wow.  I've come SO FAR.

The pictures on the end of that blog post make me feel..... nothing really.  I don't feel triggered when I look at them.  I don't look like that now, and that's a good thing.  Some parts of me I think look better, some parts look worse.  But you know what?  9 times out of 10 that's fine with me.  My body has grown two children, fed them both and a dozen other babies (either one time or over a period of time) and that is truly astonishing to me.  After the years of abuse, my body came through after all.

So here's a few pictures from THIS year.  Showing me in my real life.  Here's to another year.. let's see what 2019 has in store.

Updated Pictures

I haven't decided if I want to continue this blog or not, but for the few of you who do read it, here are recent pics of the kids.

Apparently my life wasn't crazy enough with 2 kids, a husband and a frenchie... we got Mara a kitten last week.  She named her Zowie (pronounced like Zoey).  Mara is loving her new preschool and is doing ballet, soccer and gymnastics this fall. She is doing great!  Her birthday party is November 3rd and she couldn't be more excited about that.  We are counting the days!

Here's my sweet lovey boy.  He is starting to walk on his own (he'll be 11 months old on November 1st) and eats a ton.  Today he ate an entire half of a PB&J sandwich, two strawberries and a graham cracker for lunch! He is very social and loves to smile and flirt with people.  He sleeps like crap, though.  Lol!  He's never been great at that.  He is so sweet and is a total mama's boy.

Family

I love this little family of mine.

photo: Jesse Morris

Jackson O'Lantern

The other day (maybe about a week ago now) I went to Costco with my kids.  Since it's nearly September, of course they have had all their Halloween stuff out for a while.  While making our way to the fruit/produce area, we passed by a display of motion activated decorations.  Mara spotted this giant jack-o-lantern and for some reason fell in love with it.  She begged me to buy the jack-o-lantern!  

It's about 2 feet tall, a foot and a half wide, with a big, wicked grin and glaring eyes.  When it detects motion, the eyes, nose and mouth all light up and it emits an evil sounding cackle.  It's awesome!  So of course I agreed and we bought the jack-o-lantern.  Mara named him Jackson O'Lantern, Jack for short, and we brought him home with us.  

Upon our arrival home, we discovered that we didn't have the right size screwdriver to open the battery compartment, so the jack-o-lantern sat, useless, in our living room until Corky managed to open the compartment with a steak knife.  I bought C batteries at Target, popped them in, taped the compartment shut with packing tape and we tried him out.  

Mara sat on the floor and stared at him for the better part of fifteen minutes.  We started playing with him.  I had switched him to the "light-up" mode (meaning he just stays lit and doesn't cackle) and Mara wanted him to laugh.

"Laugh, Jack," she said.

Jack didn't do anything.

"Why isn't he laughing?"

"Well you didn't ask him nicely," I pointed out.

She tried again.  "Jack, can you please laugh?"

I surreptitiously changed him to "motion-activated mode" and his little sensor detected Mara moving in front of him and he burst into laughter.

Mara's eyes lit up just like Jack's.  "He laughed!" she cried.  "He listened!"

For the next half an hour we played like this.  She would politely ask Jack to laugh and I'd switch him to sensor mode and he'd laugh.  She would politely ask him to stop and I'd switch him to light up mode.  Sitting him on my leg, I could make him shake or nod his head in response to yes or no questions.  Mara told him jokes and I'd switch him to sensor mode and he'd crack up, to her delight.

Playing with Jack in this way has become a daily activity.  I came into the living room the other day and found Jack sitting in Orion's Bumbo chair (which he's outgrown) wearing a tiara on his stem!

On Saturday, we needed to go to Target.  Guess who piled in the car along with Mara, Orion and me?  Yep.  You guessed it.

On Sunday, we had a family photoshoot scheduled in the morning.  Guess who made several appearances in our photos?  Yep.  Right again.

(photo credit: Jesse Morris)

We looked so funny walking through the park, me with Orion in my arms, Mara walking Abby and Corky pushing a stroller with a huge, cackling pumpkin in it.  In August, no less.

And last night, when Mara decided her room was too dark and scary?  Jack was there to ease her fears and keep watch over her as she slept.

I'm so glad I spent $25 on that silly pumpkin.  It's the little things, I guess.

Busy August

August is more than half gone and I'm just now finding time to sit down and write a post.  

Okay, first of all, is anyone even reading this thing after all this time?? Crazy to think how long it's been since I started this blog.  I need to overhaul it in a bad way.  Maybe someday I'll get to it.  With all my abundance of time, right?

Here are some of the things that have been taking up time and mental energy this month:

-Studying for my CEUs 
-Helping with the purchase of another rental property for our management company 
-Getting renters into the new property AND one of our existing properties whose tenant vacated last month by way of craigslist and rent dot com
-Sleep training Orion (which is going GREAT by the way!)
-Mara's extracurricular activities which include swimming class and gymnastics
-Having company stay with us for a week at the beginning of the month

Orion turned 8 months old on the 1st.  I can't believe it! He's been busily cutting teeth all month and now has 5 teeth in/mostly in and a 6th that will pop through the gums any day now.  He is starting to come around to solid foods but still prefers the boob.  Some of the solids he does like are: spaghetti stars, puffs, peas, corn, macaroni & cheese, ground turkey, toast, cheese and raisins.  He's not a fan of yogurt.. I think he finds it sour.  He is a very happy, smiley baby and is very social.  He also learned to crawl this month which has kept us all very busy!  He is so loved.  Mara is his favorite person and he often looks at her with an expression of pure adoration.  Nobody can make him laugh like she can.  He thinks she's hilarious!

Mara has had a very busy, active summer.  She's been doing swimming classes twice a week since June and has overcome any fear of the water she may have had very nicely.  She loves to jump off the side of the pool, cannonball style, splashing water all over her poor teacher.  She has another week of classes before the session ends.  She's also been doing gymnastics all summer long, once per week, and loves her coach.  I really hope she sticks with it as she's very strong for her age and is well suited for gymnastics.  She's also been going to my friend Paige's house 2-3 times a week (as has Orion) for daycare and playing with Paige's 2 kids and any other kids who may be over there to play.  I practically have to drag her away every day.  We have done the splash park numerous times, many park trips, bike rides and scooter sessions.  She's also played a lot with the little boy across the street.  She comes home dirty, exhausted and all bruised and scratched from playing in the yard or in the woods or the park with the older kids (teenagers, don't worry!).  She goes to bed happy every night.  She will trade swimming class for soccer and add a weekly ballet class in September, in addition to starting at her new preschool, which she is very excited about!

This year is Mara's "big birthday" year.  I saw this idea on another family's blog and really love it: the kids get big birthday parties every 4 years (so ages 4, 8, 12 and 16).  "Big" means they get to invite a bunch of kids and can pick a venue or something, get presents and basically just go nuts.  Mara thinks she wants to have her party at Out Of This World Pizza.  She talks about it all the time and asks how many sleeps until her birthday.  

The main reasons we are doing this are 1) because both kids birthdays are so close to the holidays it kind of becomes present overload, 2) parties are expensive and 3) I don't need 20+ new toys coming into the house every year.  It would be beyond difficult to get rid of that many toys yearly in order to keep equilibrium (you know kids form attachments to everything under the sun... "No! This is my special dust bunny! It's my pet! It lives under my bed and I will feed it and name it Bob!"  You get the idea..) and to be honest that's just not something I want to try to manage on top of everything else.  

On the off years (1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and so on) they still get celebrated but we just do a small family shindig and they get one good-sized present that all the family chips in for.  For example, last year, Mara got a big bin with a bunch of dress up costumes in it.  Corky and I bought her the bin and everyone else bought dress up stuff to go in it.  They get to pick what restaurant we go to for dinner (or what they want me to make.. last year Mara asked for mac n' cheese and corn on the cob, which was not the easiest to come by in November) and I make a special birthday cake.  First birthdays are a little different because it's the big ONE, plus it'll be Orion's golden birthday, but still not a huge party.

In my spare time (such as it is), I've been studying for my CEUs, going running when I can find the energy and spending time with my bestie who just had a baby this past week.  In other news, I have a consultation appointment on September 15th with the tattoo artist who did my Jax tattoo to design two small tattoos in honor of my kids.  So I'm pretty excited for that.

Overall just keeping busy over here.  I can't believe the summer is almost over... I'll miss the long, warm evenings and lack of schedule and structure.. but school and learning and schedules aren't all bad I suppose. :)

Plugging Along

It's August.  What? I flipped the page over on the calendar yesterday and could hardly believe it.  Between Corky's new job as a real estate agent (in addition to his house-flipping and our property management businesses), my daycare lady having sick kids one week and being out of town the next, me subbing a TON of Zumba classes and having company arriving to stay for a week, we have had the busiest few weeks we've had in a while!

Despite being busy, I've managed to get some stuff done around the house and study almost every night. Corky and I even found time to watch an entire movie! (Okay, it took us two nights to do it but we did it!)  

I'm so behind on picture dumps that I don't even know where to begin.  So I'll just post a few and call it good. :)

For my birthday I asked for a Roomba and cinnamon rolls (instead of a cake).  We went to dinner at Red Robin and my mom made cinnamon rolls from scratch.  I love the Roomba!  Abby, on the other hand, isn't so sure.  First she tried to kill it, then she followed it all around the house.  Then, when she realized it posed no danger, she went upstairs and sulked in the hallway.  Lol!

Speaking of birthdays, Mara decided that July 31st is Elsa's birthday!  We were headed to the store anyway so we picked up some stuff to make a birthday cake with blue icing.  Elsa had a lovely little party complete with cake, streamers and all her BFFs (Anna, Belle, Moana and Snow White were all in attendance, in addition to Mara, my mom, Orion and me.  I did take a picture with all of them but for some reason it won't load.)  Even Orion enjoyed the cake!  Happy Birthday Elsa!

Little Man is growing like a potted plant.  He's still not the hugest fan of solids but he seems to like chicken noodle baby food.  He gets it all over himself but that's part of the fun, right??

Mmm... cauliflower fried rice!

A little collage I made of Mara and Rusty, her #1 stuffie.

And this, just because it's true:

So Busy

Well.. here we are at the end of July.  My last post was almost a month ago.  Wow!  It's been a while since I've gone that long between posts.  I have a multitude of pictures to share but.... I think I'm just going to blog.

I am having SUCH a hard time with body image right now.  This breastfeeding appetite is ridiculous and it's stressing me out.  Actually, there are a lot of things stressing me out right now.  Nothing major, just things that need attention and brain power (the latter being something I don't have much of to spare these days).  Things like passing my online courses for my personal trainer recertification, subbing a million classes over the next week, keeping appointments, working around Corky's new and ever-changing work schedule, making sure Mara gets to all her activities (who knew a 3 year old could be so busy?) and finding alternative childcare as my regular friend who has been watching the kids has had 2 sick kiddos of her own this past week and is out of town next week.  How's that for a run-on sentence? Lol!

Anyway, it's funny (not really) how the previous paragraph started with me saying I'm struggling with body image and ended with me listing the things that are causing me a little bit of stress right now.  I guess that's just the way it works... stress causes me to need coping mechanisms and that old ED voice is quick to jump to the front.

Here are two pictures taken of me today.  This is what I look like.  I have no idea why but I feel like I look so much bigger than I want to.

(Orion sure looks super cute though)

In other, much happier, news, Orion and I might be extras in a movie that is filming in Portland right now.  They might need us this coming Saturday.  That would be fun! I'll keep you posted.

End of June Picture Dump

I haven't blogged much of substance this year.  Mostly picture dumps and such.  However, I feel like it's worth pointing out that I've already exceeded the number of posts I made in all of 2017 and it's only June 30th.  So that's something, right?

A lot has happened this summer thus far.  So I'm going to do my usual thing and drop the pictures below and caption them.  I'll try to group them together in a somewhat correct chronological order, but no promises.  Not that you guys would know anyway. ;)

Dance Recital - June 24, 2018

Mara had her first dance recital!  It was done through a mobile dance company, meaning the teachers come to the school/establishment to do class rather than the kids going to a studio. Mara LOVED it.  It was a legit recital!  Dress rehearsal, costumes, the works!  Mara wasn't feeling her best (more on that in a minute) but she rallied and did a great job.  Her class danced to Deep in the Heart of Texas and it was pretty much the cutest thing that ever happened.  So proud of my little dancer, Miss Mara Soleil!

Speaking of little miss.... she had a nasty scooter accident on Friday, June 22.  She went too fast down a hill and crashed, leaving her with a lot of gnarly road rash and a massive sore in her mouth from biting through her lip.  She was SO brave and such a tough girl.  The worst part for her was actually having to pull the bandaids off to clean the owies.  Once that part was done, she was fine!  The cut in her mouth turned into a massive canker sore which is still bothering her a tiny bit, making eating tough, but aside from that she is basically all healed now!  Poor little thing.  She's a trooper.

The night of the crash. Check out all those bandaids!

Next day.  Poor thing.

Orion

Mister O is almost 7 months old.  He's doing great.  Super sweet and growing like crazy!  He just had his 6 month appointment mid-June and is the size of an average 15 month old.  Lol!  Love him so much.  Here are some pictures of him.  Beware of his cuteness!

Selfies

I'm not even going to apologize for these.  For one thing, hardly anyone else ever takes pictures of me, so if I want any I have to do it myself.  Second of all, I see nothing wrong with feeling happy with how I look and wanting to document it.  Considering I have a HEALTHY body now and I don't always like how it looks, I feel like it's even more worth it to take a picture when I do!  Anyway.  Here are a few selfies.

This one was actually taken today, 6/30.  Pardon my messy countertop.

At the ice rink during Mara's skating lesson.

All black for working backstage at Mara's dance recital.

Abby

I got a few good pictures of my little brindle beauty this month.  She's usually not very photogenic or is just being an antisocial grump. Lol.  

These last 2 of Abby look as though they don't even contain Abby!  But that's just the thing... she's the master of camouflage.  FIND THE FRENCHIE! :)

Pancake Adventures!

Over the last month I've been making Mara a lot of pancakes.  It's one of her favorite foods and since her scooter accident, she hasn't been able to eat crunchy things very well.  So... here are some of the pancake shenanigans we've been up to recently!

Randoms

Mara doing chores.

Oregon summer.

Miss Sass eating grapes.

Whenever I go to put Orion down for a nap, Abby always pushes the door open with her nose, comes in and makes a nest in the blanket or whatever is lying on the floor.  She's so sweet.  She loves Orion.