I started using another website to track my running, dailymile.com. It keeps track of my total miles and good runs vs. bad runs, etc. So I’m going to try to start blogging again more regularly. Both good and bad stuff. Life is all about ups and downs. I was able to import all my old blog stuff right along with the running stuff, so all the pieces of my life fit together in harmony. If only real life was as easy as a blog.
So what’s going on?
Me - I finally had that day when I woke up and knew that I could start to lose weight again. I wish I knew what triggers it (though hopefully I won’t need to find it too many more times). But everyday I wake up wanting to make a change and then one day it just sticks. It happened when I lost weight before Spencer and then again about this time last year. I hope I can keep it going this time, but I feel like I felt last year when everything seems so logical and natural. Anyway, the catalyst this time was realizing that I’m never going to be the runner I want to be with 50 extra pounds on my body. I picked up a bag of play sand for the kids and it really sunk in how much harder it would be to run with that bag in my hand. And that’s where I was a year ago. So if I took another 50 pounds off, wowza! I could run like the wind.
Trying to eat healthier and reduce the processed foods in our diets. Making bread at home, yogurt, ice cream, and baking from scratch. So far, so good, but I think that’s had something to do with my weight edging back up again over the winter. As always, finding balance will be the key. Looking forward to spring and getting outside again. I think this is the first winter since I've been a parent that I've really felt the cabin fever thing going on. There are just only so many places to go, and I find us doing a lot of shopping and cooking to pass the time. Funny that I'm not doing a lot of cleaning though lol.
The kids are good. Rachel is curious and so very observant. She never stops talking, and can often be heard telling me exactly how quiet she is being. She’s going to be a different challenge than Spencer, that’s for sure. Partly because she’s the second child, so a lot of her developmental stages are kinda btdt for us, we don’t seem to work so hard to curb her 'bad' behaviors. And she is so much more the typical kid than Spencer ever was. The constant talking, the tantrums (though nothing like the horror stories I hear form other moms - yet), the bossy-ness, etc. She'd still sit in front of the tv all day long if I'd let her. She begs to watch one show after anohter, but doesn't argue when I say no. We are trying to get her potty trained, but she wants none of it. I've promised everying I can think of (except food): big girl bed, new clothes, new toys, etc. I've told her that she can't wear her new bathing suit or go to school in the fall in diapers. But she says "okay, I want a diaper please". Stubborn little thing, can't imagine where she gets it from.
Spencer is amazing us all with his computer skills. He was surfing the Russian Hot Wheels site yesterday lol. He's obsessed with cars and trucks, just like his dad. He will play with cars and surf the Hot Wheels website all day long. He love the new Hot Wheels tv show, but I try to limit it and steer them towards Super Why or something at least a little bit educational. I think the cartoon network is the tv equivalent of candy lol. He finished speech therapy back in Septemeber, but is still noticably behind his peers. The last couple weeks I've heard him practicing simple phrases that I can only assume he has trouble with at school. Things like "good morning, Alex" and "Will you play cars with me?" He's still not using his upper lip at all which makes it virtually impossible for him to produce the P and B sounds, the M hard. His lower lip is better, but not great. V's are hard, etc. So much of what he says is garbled. It breaks my heart to know that he's struggling at school and already feeling the beginnings of embarrassment. But he's practicing on his own, and not getting frustrated when I repeat his words with the correct enunciation. So that's actually a really good thing. I've always kinda thought that until he owned the problem himself, all the speech therapy in the world wasn't going to really help all that much. And awhile back, I gave up on the whole "don't ever tell the kid you don't understand them" stuff and started saying, I'm sorry Spence, but I just don't understand, you have to use your lips or think of another way to say it. Some things are coming out really clearly now, much clearer than before, so he is making progress. I wish I could go back and tell myself two and a half years ago that he would be practicing how to ask his friends to play with him, that it really has been just a language delay all along. I could've saved myself so much anxiety and worry. He had a 4th birthday party at a local train place. It was fun, and the kids had a blast. I have a picture of all 12 kids on the big train going for a ride. Super fun!
Mike isn’t doing so well, but hopefully this time he'll do something about it. He's spirally downward again. This time though, there's nothign to blame it on. No bad job, no too heavy workload, no baby keeping us up all night, no mom in the hospital, no master’s degree, no bachelor’s degree, no career anxiety. Nothing. Life is good. He likes his job. We are fine financially. The kids are healthy, we are healthy. But he just can’t handle it. The dogs come in muddy, the kitchen is a mess, the kids are running around screaming (happily), Spencer is making car noises, etc. Every thing bothers him. He’s almost always angry, or just on the verge of. His most common phrase is “it’s very frustrating”. He latches onto anything that might make things even worse and obsesses over it. He wants the kids and I gone (we went to Memphis last week) until we actually are, and then he’s crazy with loneliness and can’t wait till we get home. We were home for about 20 minutes before he got the twitch in his eye that said he wished we were gone again. It’s really hard for him. It’s really hard for me. He says he’s ready to get help. Again. That he won’t give up this time like the other times - either because it isn’t working or because it is. He says he’s ready for a change, that it’s so much worse and never getting better. That he thinks it’s affecting his ability to do his job. As is the pattern, I will either bug him to make an appointment or make if for him, and I’ll keep telling him to make more appts, but as soon as I stop pushign him to go, he’ll probably stop. Things will be better (not good, rarely have I ever seen my husband what a typical person would call ‘happy’) for a bit, and then we’ll start over again. The lows will get lower and lower until I convince him to try therapy again. At some point he’ll not want to try again to get help, and at some point I’ll stop caring enough to push it. This scares me so much I can barely even thing about it. I love Mike more than anything, but I don’t want to turn around 30 years from now and resent him for never being happy and therefore never allowing me to be truly happy - or maybe truly fulfilled is a better term. Or worse, hate him for it. I can’t continue to walk on eggshells and try to gloss over his behavior to the kids. They ask why he doesn’t say goodbye to them in the morning (or Rachel does primarily). His eye starts to twitch if bedtime looks like it’s going to be a minute late. And regularly talks about their bedtime being his favorite part of the day. He spends more time yelling at them and trying to get them to be quiet than talking with them, playing with them or even touching them. And it makes me so angry. But I can’t say anything, nothing that paints him in even the lightest of negative lights or things will jsut get worse. I have to smile and pretend like he’s not acting like an asshole, or like this is an isolated incident. When the reality is that his not being angry and frustrated are the isolated incidents. I feel like we are getting back to place where I dread the weekends instead of look forward to them. I don’t want to keep doing this. I honestly don’t know which scenario is worse - not having Mike or having Mike like this forever. This has been going on to varying degrees since I met him so the obvious answer that that even a miserable Mike is better than no Mike, but every time we cycle through this again, I feel myself with less and less hope of it ever changing (and less compassion for what he’s going through) and I’m really scared of what happens it finally becomes clear that he will never get the help he needs to learn how to cope with normal life. If this is the way it’s going to be forever, can I handle it? Can I just blow his behavior off the way I wish he could blow things off? Can I still have compassion for him if he shows no desire to stop wallowing? Can I just stand next to him while he hates every minute of his life? I love him so much, I just want him to be happy - can I survive admitting that he never will be? Do I want to? Oh well, I’ll just keep hoping that this time he really will change, this time he means it, this time he’ll get help. This time will be different. :o(