New Hampshire Trip - Part 2

You can read Part 1 here.

After a quick lunch, we hit the road again towards Concord Hospital to visit my brother Philip.

Not gonna lie, I was beyond exhausted but I was excited to see him after a being apart for a year even if it was because he was in the hospital.

When I saw him for the first time, he kind of looked like death. Sorry Phil, but ya did. He was pale with an oxygen mask over his face and he couldn't speak more than a few sentences without getting winded.

He was in good spirits and at least was on the far side of the room by the window. He had a lovely view (which I totally forgot to snap a picture of...) 

We spent a lot of time going between my parent's house and the hospital that week to keep the poor boy sane. He was SO bored. And I totally don't blame him. At least the hospital offered Wi-Fi! 

Noella spent a lot of time in his lap, Giraffe tucked firmly in her mouth watching cartoons on Netflix. Noella's choice of cartoons did not please my brother but he stuck through it anyway for some cuddle time. It's good practice for when he and Jennie have babies. 

Slowly he was weaned off of the oxygen mask and was able to just use the cannula nose thingy. He hated it more than the mask because it dried out his nose. I don't know how he could stand having little plastic pieces sitting in his nostrils. No thank you! 

Because he was in the hospital for blood clots in his lungs and the genetic tests were negative, they really had no idea why he had the clots in his lungs so they focused on getting his clotting factor to normal levels. This meant he had to have blood drawn every four hours for the first four days of his hospital stay. Because he has the same lovely bruising genes I do, he looked like a heroin addict. Note the MASSIVE nasty bruises on his forearm. He also has the same "rolly" veins my mom and I do; Meaning that when they go in with the needle, his veins move around when the needle hits it initially. It's not easy to draw blood from people with rolly veins therefore there's a lot of time spent fishing for the vein and therefore there's a lot more bruising. 

All of the bruises changed from deep purple to blue, to a greenish color and finally yellow before he was sent home.

By the end of the week Noella was kind of over sitting with Philip to watch cartoons. Especially when she realized the hospital had "Elligators" (Elevators) which she asked to ride about a bazillion times each visit. This resulted in Gammy, Aunt Jennie and I taking turns taking her on walks around the visiting area lobby or up the elevators just because we couldn't take her asking any more. 

Luckily the whole week wasn't spent visiting the hospital. We also made it to a few lovely parks in the area. One with Gammy and another park with Aunt Jennie. She LOVED it. 

The Miss also hit another milestone on the trip. She learned how use the "big girl" swings. The whole time she was swinging all I could think was "When did she get big enough to use those!? Wasn't I like 11 when I first learned!? Surely she's too young." But nope. She's a big big girl now! 

Aunt Jennie was SO fun. She was nice enough to share her room with us during our stay. She made sure she had extra snacks when we went to the hospital and even ran the Miss to the potty a few times for me. She seriously kept me sane because that little darling babe of mine was up before 5am 6 out of 7 days that first week. Jennie, you are AWESOME and I can't thank you enough for your help that week. 

By Saturday we were going a little stir crazy so Gammy and Papa packed us up and we headed to the beach. But that's saved for Part 3. (This was a LONG 10 days so there's 4 parts. Stay tuned!)

New Hampshire trip Part 1

On June 2nd at 5:45am the Miss and I were at the Orlando airport boarding a plane bound first to Philadelphia and finally to Manchester NH. We were on our way home.

My mom had called me on Saturday to let me know that my brother Philip had been admitted to the hospital with blood clots in his lungs and they weren't sure what caused them. I wasn't going to go initially because we didn't really have the extra money to throw around but after thinking about it for a while we decided to book a last minute ticket and we got an amazing price on it considering we bought it less than 10 hours from take off.

Noella did incredibly well on the airplane. She was beyond thrilled by the idea. I was super impressed with how happy she was for the first leg of our journey considering she was woken up at 4:30am to get to the airport for our 6am flight. I however, was exhausted as I had been awake since 7:30am Saturday...

Our lay over in Philly was not as much fun... She had decided she had already had enough for the day. I packed light and didn't check anything because we were flying U.S. Airways and it was $25 for the first bag (SO ridiculous but for two last minute tickets at less than $350, I was going to make it work). I had a small roll case, my backpack stuffed to bursting and the carseat to tote along with us to the next terminal. Oh and Noella's hand to hold. Otherwise she stopped at every single flippin window and walked over to anyone sitting on the benches near the main walkway. I was never so scared I'd lose her.

 I had never been to that airport before and it's HUGE! We had to make it to a totally different terminal in less than 45 minutes with a toddler and all of our stuff in tow. It was slow going but we were at least moving until she saw the moving sidewalks. She wanted to ride them and I didn't get the memo. I heard her mumbling something while we walked past them but I couldn't quite hear her and we needed to keep moving. I figured out the issue once we reached the end. That girl sat down and screamed in protest. I was almost in tears. No one else in that airport had children with them so clearly I was the insane one for dragging a child onto a plane that early but we muscled on with promise to ride the next one. And that we did. She stood on it and didn't move clogging the whole thing up and heaven forbid I try to move her along the 50ft walkway. She decided it was okay to walk the last 10 feet of it. Those people couldn't get around us fast enough.

When we finally made it to our next plane, I knew our seats were all the way in the last row so I shuffled Noella along the best I could and got settled. Well, I was apparently on the wrong side. The man who's side I was sitting in couldn't see that I was with Noella and started to yell at me about it from four seats up. I started to apologize and pack up to move across the aisle when the woman he was traveling with noticed Noella. By the time she decided we could stay I had already packed everything back up in preparation to move. I might have snapped at them a bit... I had had ENOUGH. I just wanted to get there and take a nap already. There might have also been tears and lots of avoiding eye contact. I made sure to apologize because the entire hour and a half flight I felt SO awful. He cut me off and mumbled a rushed "whatever, don't worry about it. I'm NEVER having kids so I don't know or care to know what you're dealing with." Cue more tears. I sat there floored for a moment making sure they had a large enough head start off the plane that I wasn't going to catch up with them again.

We made it to Manchester in once piece and found Gammy, Papa AND Aunt Jennie waiting for us. Noella was thrilled and SO excited for a break from the airplane. We grabbed a quick lunch and then it was off to see Uncle Phil in the hospital!

 After lunch she fell asleep in less than 10 minutes. Thank goodness for small miracles.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

The skinny

So you remember this post? About how I needed to learn to eat to live and not live to eat?

Well, here's my check in.

So far, I've felt as though I've made some better choices. Not great choices everyday but I didn't get to this size over night and  I can't expect myself to change dramatically otherwise it will become an unhealthy obsession.

I've realized that as much "fun" as I had using that calorie counter on my phone, I was literally going crazy using it. If I went over my daily caloric intake of 1510 calories my self worth went down the tube and I spiraled out of control for a few days because "I couldn't do it" and was a "failure". So I've stopped using it all together and I've realized I'm actually thinking about eating less. I'm eating smaller portions and drinking more water. (Thanks to a certain favorite pink tumbler with straw for $2 from the dollar store)

I'm making slow but sure progress. I've gone from 305 at the beginning of the year to 289 as of Sunday. Slow but sure progress. I've noticed the changes in my body and how my clothing fits. It gets me excited. It gives me hope that I'm getting somewhere. 

Now please enjoy a wonderful video of Noella attempting to jump. Just because it's darn cute. 

On being a mama

It's hard.

Flat out hard.

And to be perfectly honest, there are some days that I want to throw in the towel because I feel like I mentally can't handle being asked for the umpteenth time for a turn on the iPad when she's already used her time for that day. Or because she's told me she's hungry and has turned down/spit out/cried over all the choices I've given her.

But then there are these magical moments where she comes up just for a kiss and to tell me she loves me. Or when she's done something for the first time like figured out how to eat her potatoes without flicking them onto the floor.

Those magical moments make it all worth it.

And now for some magical moment pictures.

P.s. That darling babe is wearing undies and peeing in the BIG potty now. I couldn't be more proud. :) 

bright eyed.

I took this series of shots one morning after finding Noella standing on her bed looking out of the window at the garbage trucks. Once she saw my camera there was some bribery and coercion to finish the photos though... that girl will do almost anything for a little treat.

Biscuits

There's been a lot of naked biscuits around lately.

I don't particularly mind though because they are awfully cute.

That's right. My babe is out of diapers. Kind of. She uses one at night and one for naptime. Woohoo!

It's been a long process and we still aren't finished because she wants to take her time and some days she just doesn't wanna. but I'm trying to be flexible and supportive of her choices.

Flexible and supportive means that she gets a day in diapers if she asks for it because to be honest, those are the days that she woke up cranky and isn't showing any signs of changing her attitude any time soon.

Flexible and supportive means that if she doesn't want to use the big potty right now I let her do her business in her little pink potty and dutifully clean it after every use.

Flexible and supportive means that some days she has accidents and I don't make a big deal about it but make sure to thank her for letting me know she's peed on the carpet in her room because she couldn't get to her potty fast enough.

Flexible and supportive also means that she gets to be bare buns because she can't pull her underwear down fast enough nor does she have the patience to let me do it before she needs to potty.

We have only tried one outing without a diaper on. Noella made it almost the whole time dry. She asked for the potty while we were in the frozen food section and with the 200ft dash from there to the bathroom, there was no way she was going to make it. It was a good thing I had thought to bring extra clothes. We will have to try again some time soon. I think she will do better if I can get her to use the big potty on a regular basis without bribes. That's something to work on! 

But seriously. I'm excited you guys. I'm only having to deal with two diapers a day and we've only had 4 accidents in the past month. She's getting to be such a big big girl. 

Eating to live.

There's a grumbling in my tummy. It's been there for going on two hours now. I'm trying to ignore it but it's suddenly morphed from just a grumbling to a burning and grumbling sensation. It's trying to tell me something.

I'm hungry. Or at least I think I am.

I'm trying to learn how to deal with hunger in a positive way. How is that possible you ask, if you aren't going to eat something?  Most people eat when they feel hungry. I can't. If I eat the minute I feel hungry, I eat until I start to feel sick. It's disgusting. So I'm training my over stretched stomach that it is in fact not going to die if I go three hours without eating. That water is just fine as a filler between meals. I'm trying to help it help it's self. I'm an emotional over eater. I have been for as long as I can remember so this hunger I'm feeling isn't really all hunger. Some of it is boredom. Some of it is guilt.

Yep. It's true.

Food has been my best friend and a horrible enemy of mine for as long as I can remember. It's brought me joy in moments of celebration, comfort in moments of strife. It's helped me get through a boring rainy afternoon when there was nothing I could think to do but sit with a bowl of goldfish and eat.

My emotional over eating has gotten me this far in life. But I feel like I've had enough. I feel like if I don't consciously make changes and have people hold me accountable for them, I'm going to need an entire new wardrobe soon and I'm quickly running out of sizes available in most stores. I need to train myself to eat to live and not live to eat.

I've tried many many times over the years to start watching what I eat and how much. It works. For a while. I lose a few pounds and my clothes fit better and then I slide. Slowly but surely into old, horrible habits. A handful of pretzels here, a slice of cake there. Just a little treat I tell myself. I've earned it. But really, I haven't.

In an minute all the effort I've put in to mentally strengthen myself against food is gone. I rationalize, eat myself into oblivion, feel incredibly guilty and then give up.

Sometimes I don't know what's worse. Living with my addiction or the guilt I feel over backsliding after a stretch of healthy eating habits.

I am back on the wagon. I'm counting calories and making sure I'm eating because I'm hungry and not because I'm feeling something I don't want to deal with. I'm making an effort to hydrate properly and making sure I'm moving around during the day.

As a stay at home mom I fall into ruts of "we've walked the block 8 times this week I'm bored with it already". It shouldn't be an excuse to not get outside and exercise (especially with the lovely weather we've been having) but it becomes one.

The biggest reason for this confession is that it's going to hold me responsible. I can honestly say, I haven't shopped in the non-plus sized section since I was in the 7th grade. 7th grade. That's like what, 10, 11 years old? Yep. I was a size 20w in the 7th grade. No one else had the clothes I was wearing because no one else was that big. I have accepted the fact that I'm a large girl and I've made the best of it but it's never been easy.

It took me a long time to realize that even though I'm fat I am beautiful. Dating in college and high school was hard. College was way harder. Being surrounded by super beautiful girls who always had a pack of boys with them was detrimental to my confidence. The more I hung out with my roommates and realized that none of the boys following them around were flirting with me, the more guilty I felt for being fat, the more I'd eat, the fatter I'd get. It was a vicious cycle. I hated it.


I am forever grateful to my husband for seeing past my size and choosing me for who I am. For seeing me as beautiful despite my size 24 jeans. For reminding me how pretty I am even as those jeans grow tighter.

I am ready to try again. Ready to face the hunger pangs and tell them "No! I'm not hungry. I ate an hour ago. I'm bored" and find something to do. I am ready give up living to eat and learn how to eat to live.