Taking my blessings for granted

I take so much for granted.

http://evilstepmonster.blogspot.com/2010/08/to-kayla-now-that-youre-one.html

Lord, help me to truly see the blessings you have for me, today and always.

Parenting Preparation

Stolen from whendidibecomethegrownup.wordpress.com/ and I couldn't resist it!

Preparation for parenthood…

It’s not just a matter of reading books and decorating the nursery. Here are 12 simple tests for expectant parents to take to prepare themselves for the real-life experience of being a mother or father.

1. Women: To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a pillowcase filled with beans down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months, take out 10% of the beans.
Men: To prepare for paternity, go to the local drug store, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time.

2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it — it’ll be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

3. To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room from 5 pm to 10 pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious noise) playing loudly. At 10 pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1 am. Put the alarm on for 3 am. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2 am and make a drink. Go to bed at 2:45 am. Get up again at 3 am when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4 am. Put the alarm on for 5 am. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, first smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds, then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

5. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: first buy an octopus and a bag made out of loose mesh. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this: all morning.

6. Take an egg carton, using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only Scotch tape and a piece of foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Last, take a milk carton, a ping pong ball, and an empty packet of Cocoa Pops and make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations! You have just qualified for a place on the play group committee.

7. Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it in the cassette player. Take a family-size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

8. Get ready to go out. Wait outside the bathroom for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come back in. Go out again. Walk down the front path. Walk back up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutely every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you’ve had as much as you can stand until the neighbors come out and stare at you. Give up and go back into the house. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

9. Always repeat everything you say at least five times.

10. Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a preschool child — a fully-grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

11. Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure a lot of it falls on the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old baby.

12. Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

A Retrospective

Im the mother to an almost one year old son. Oh...MY.... GOSH!! People say it all the time, but where HAS the time gone? I feel like that first 6 weeks was just a blink behind me. But this time last year, I was just a week away from meeting my sweet angel baby man. Amazing!
In the last year, I have...

• had a major surgery.
  
• joined the club, finally.
  
• Had every human emotion possible
• thrown about a gabillion diapers in the landfill, something Im not proud of at all.
  
• been comforted and soothed by so MANY friends
• been stretched to the MAX!
• LOVED and BEEN loved in incredible ways I didn't think were possible.
  
• been so very blessed!

The weight loss is going. I'll put it this way. No matter what the scales say, I feel better since making the decision to put my health on the priority list. I'm purposefully exercising now, which is difficult, but afterward, I'm very proud I did it. I wish I could tell you how much I've lost. I would if my scale had a battery in it. But right now, its really kind of nice to see when I step on it, the pretty blue screen lights up and the word,"LO" appears. YEAHHHHH baby! That's what I'm talking about.

We are celebrating our Baby Man's first birthday with a bash at the house. It will be a bug theme. We will have a hayride and games, cupcakes, and a TON of folks. As long as Baby Man gets to ride around on something with wheels, he'll be FINE! I've just imagined, waited, and planned this day in my head for so long. I'm just incredibly happy to be at this place.

I know just a short time ago, I was on the other side of this odyssey. I think so often of the fellow IFers out there that have yet to be blessed. I can't tell you to keep fighting. I can't tell you, "it will happen." I think that was the hardest thing about infertility, the uncertainty. Life is such a gamble. Infertility taught me, a very conservative play-by-the-rules type person, to take a risk. My Daddy used to say, "Anything worth having is worth fighting for." He was so incredibly right. I didn't know HOW we would accomplish our goal, but with God's grace, we made it! The tears and heartache were immense. The challenges, both physical and mental, were enormous. The life lessons learned were innumerable. The sacrifices were immeasurable. But, I now see how each instance prepared me for the life I have now. I sincerely pray for each and every man and woman that desires to have a child be blessed with their heart's desire.

Here is my almost one year old, Baby Man...

I finally did it!

I bit the bullet and finally took a step in the right direction yesterday. Getting my health back into order is TOP PRIORITY! I finally went to see the "Fat Dr" and am now on the road to losing the poundage that has blossomed around my mid section. This is NOT BABY weight... This is my coping weight after baby was born. So Im owning it, all myself. So its NOW TIME TO SAY GOODBYE (nah nah nah nah...) to my butt in the front!
This will take awhile, but I believe Im now motivated to do this task. Im going to tackle it much as I did the first time. I have a reason to do it, not just for myself, but for my FAMILY. Here starts the most likely year long journey to get my weight under control. I'm ready to wear some decent clothes and feel BETTER. Im hoping that my enthusiasm continues....
I have fought for 6 years for a baby, why can't I keep fighting for myself? TA DA! I have found my new mission to take the place of my IF mission. I have some fight left in me, I think ;o) This is also me getting back to my life with my new family. I've been in a fog for 11 months. The baby fog has lifted, life is to resume... NOW!

Crossroads

I've come to a cross road. I've got to do SOMETHING about several situations. The deal with Angel, we are working on it. It didn't take 20 minutes to get to this point, and its going to take longer than 20 minutes to fix it. Although, a conversation over the weekend, he said, "We used to do things for each other." Thats about the only thing that stuck with me out of the whole chat. Im thinking he's feeling neglected, and doesn't really know how to tell me this. So, I'm working on it.
My weight. Its ALWAYS an issue. Its always BEEN an issue. I've figured out, Im at the point that I have to do something about it because Im either going to have to lose some weight or get a c[pap. Know what that is? its a thing you put on your face when you sleep that forces air into your lungs so you can breathe. It is for sufferers of sleep apnea. Well, Im convinced I have it. My excess weight exacerbates this problem. My child, for the most part, sleeps extremely well at night. I on the other hand, wake all the time. I know I snore because my throat is sore in the morning. I wake up and feel like I've been in a fight. I haven't slept since I was about 20 pounds lighter.
I was at my heaviest after giving birth. Then I lost lots of weight in that first month. I know I was definitely looking at some good numbers around December (HM was born in October). Well, to cope with things (Things = lack of time, sleep, motivation) I would binge eat. I ate maybe once a day for a long time. Its all caught up with me now. Im eating SOME better now, but with PCOS and IR, Im not doing what I should. I have what I need to do in my brain. Education is not the problem. I just have no time. Along with modified eating habits (to help my insulin levels), I've GOT to exercise. When do I carve out 15, 20, 30 min to exercise? I work full time. Im up at 5am and in bed hopefully by 10:30pm. I am out the door in the morning at 6:45 and home by 5:45. I take 15-20 min lunches at work so I can pick up the man early and get home to get a few extra minutes of playtime. Not to mention, its seriously 102 degrees outside right now.
I'm TRYING to get back to my habits that I had when I lost my initial weight. Before the kiddo, I lost 30 pounds. I did it in about 6 months. I've just GOT to do it again. I've got to do it so I don't have to put a machine on my face to breath, so I can be here for my son when he graduates, and so I can be the best Mom I can be. Right now, I feel like H is getting the leftovers. NOT FAIR to him at all.
Please comment. I need some extra motivation. I need to look back at these comments and say, YES!! I can DO IT! KEEP GOING.... because its going to be REALLY HARD. As always if you have any ideas how I can do this, PLEASE TELL ME! Im open for any and all suggestions. Tough love is okay too... just don't forget the LOVE part.