Last night, I was awake with L for a total of three hours. This was actually a good night with her, because those hours were not spent screaming and crying and grunting, but just eating and listening to Mommy sing a made up song about an “Early-Rising Girly”.
Poor little girl.
During those awake hours (that were not, by the way, consecutive), my over-tired brain was actually working. Thinking. Contemplating life, the universe, and everything (42!! And if that makes no sense to you, you’re missing out on some funny stuff. Weird, but funny).
One of those thoughts revolved solely around my big, fat, fatness…which, I am very happy to be able to say, is not so big and fat anymore.
I started out my pregnancy with L weighing a whopping 242 pounds. I lost ten of that before I found out I was pregnant, and I stayed right around 230 my whole pregnancy.
The scale delivered excellent news to me this morning, informing me that I now weigh 207 pounds.
Not where I want to be, but far better than where I was. Granted, after I had E, my weight dropped down to 205, and the more I thought about keeping the weight off, the faster it seemed to creep back on.
Not this time, dammit! Not going there again. E.V.E.R.
This time, I have a plan. And a fancy scale to check up on myself frequently. And two kiddos instead of just one, one of whom is old enough to learn bad habits or good habits from his parents. I’m shooting for teaching him GOOD eating habits.
Another thought was how much I really love being a stay-at-home mom/wife. I might not be spectacular at it, and chaos erupts several times a day, and I forget to pay important bills, and I lose my mind at random intervals…
But this role? It just…FITS. I can honestly say, despite the inevitable bad day here and there, that I have never been happier in my life than I am now, simply hanging around the house with E and my husband and now our daughter. I’m loving learning how to run this household in a way that not just works for all of us, but is comfortable and fun. I love those good days when everything (miraculously) is clean and nice for when Clint comes home. I love teaching E new things, and learning constantly from him. I’m beginning to learn to love L for more reasons than simply because she is mine.
I almost, ALMOST don’t even mind cooking so much anymore. Even if I still suck at it.
No, honestly, I’m horrible with food. As in, it’s a stroke of luck if I manage to cook a pot of pasta correctly.
Something else that occurred to me in the wee hours of the morning was that I am sick of being a door mat. I don’t mean that people are mean to me and I just sit there and take it (well, that doesn’t usually happen, anyway). I mean, it seems like nearly everybody I know has a stronger, more agressive, or more out going personality than I do, and therefore, I get trampled.
People rarely ever hear/listen to what I have to say on any given subject. For instance, I have a family member who will make a comment about something going on with E, and I will then try to explain what’s going on there. This person completely ignores what I have to say, which causes them to worry unneccessarily about E.
If they would just LISTEN, there’d be no problem. No worries. Granted, if this person DID actually listen to me, ever, it might mean that I am actually an intelligent human being WORTH listening to…
Maybe I won’t go into that right now. I’ll just get myself irritated.
Anyway, where I was going with this…
I don’t HAVE to be a door mat. I don’t have to be POLITE to everyone, I don’t have to waste my time trying to make myself heard in a POLITE way, I don’t have to let anyone else waste my time because I am trying to be POLITE and not tell them to buzz off.
More importantly, I realized that I don’t want to teach my children that it is alright to let other people treat THEM the way a lot of people treat me (i.e, as though my opinions/thoughts/time don’t matter). I want them to know how/when to stand up for themselves, something that I’m just starting to learn myself.
Wow, I should do more late-night thinking.
Cristen's Corner 
If I could cut and paste a picture here it would be a picture of a standing ovation! Good for you! đŸ˜€