Like.

I like that when I weigh myself, the number is going down.

I like getting dressed every day, because I feel like I look good in my clothes.

I like that my husband lets me sleep in and lay in bed and read if I want to.

I like the company of books, often more than the company of people.

I like my major, history moves me.

I like my kids, they are very cute.

I like the milky smell of my baby, which he won't have much longer.

I like music and I like a wide variety.

I like to run, it clears my mind and makes me feel like I could conquer the world.

I like my mom, she's a heckuva gal.

I like living in Washington for more reasons than I can list.

I like my husband much more than I like anyone else.

I like my dog, he's the best friend God could have given me.

I like my mama cat because she's so sweet.

I like food too much sometimes.

I like beer, but only the good stuff.

I like the interwebz, the interwebz iz entertaining.

I like me.

I like today.

On Weight Loss, Running, and My LIfe.

Sometimes I go months without blogging because I fall into a routine and I'm happy and life is blissfully normal. Generally, as far as my blog goes, no news is good news. This is the case right now. I have not written since the beginning of April because life has been great and I have nothing to report.

I ran in my first 5k race. I ran every step and I finished with a time of 41 minutes and 48 seconds. I was the 98th overall female finisher. I was ecstatic. I am registered for two more races in July and I am looking forward to them immensely. I am planning to find one or two to register for in August and I would like to attempt to run a 10k in September sometime. I just have to find the right event.

I love running. It has become a crucial component in my plan to not be depressed and crazy and it keeps me going. Every time I run, I feel like I have conquered myself. It's amazing. All of the demons and bad thoughts are gone and I am whole. I also have no cares beside the next mile. I don't have to worry about diapers or about vacuuming. Homework is on the back burner. It's just me and the road. Nothing compares to the feeling I get when I run. I wish I had the time to run in the morning and at night too. The best thing about running is that I get the wonderful feeling for free. My treadmill is paid for and it's all mine. My running shoes are paid for and have miles to go. Running doesn't require me to look pretty or smell good. It doesn't even require me to have happy thoughts. I just have to show up and pound the payment. The road is free. When there is nothing else for me to do, not a dime in the bank, and I am tired of life, I can run to be with my thoughts and to clear my head. I really love running. In fact, at this moment I am waiting for my husband to get home so that I can run.

Running has aided in my weight loss process, too. However, I think eating right has been the most crucial factor. I have almost completely had to abandon my love affair with sweets. I had to give up my hobby of baking (in favor of running, which is a healthier hobby). I miss baking and I have to fight with myself almost every day not to gorge on candy and sweets but the fact of the matter is that I love myself more right now than I have in three years. I am nearing the 40 pound mark, which will put me 20 pounds from my goal weight and I actually like looking at myself in the mirror these days. There was a time when I actively avoided mirrors and I would have never willingly let my picture be taken. To some, having twenty pounds to lose might seem like a lot but for me, it is marginal. It means that I have lost the majority of what I want to lose. That is me looking at the glass from a half-full perspective. I am over the hump and I can do it. I am big on proving things to myself and I have proved myself to myself. Now I just have to prove to myself that I won't quit until I cross the finish line. I think that when I reach my goal weight, I will probably ceremoniously break my scale. I think that will be healthy and freeing and awesome. Perhaps I will have a party when I break my scale and allow everyone to help me smash it.

That is all.

Last Week vs. This Week

Last week, when I stepped on the scale, I was disappointed but not surprised. I had gained about 2 pounds back. I knew that I had a bad week. I didn't count my points most of the week and by the weekend I had kind of resigned myself to not seeing results that week so I just ate what I wanted. I also had not worked out at all that week. I knew that I was not going to see the results that I wanted, but it didn't make it any less disappointing to see that number on the scale and to know that I had gained back weight that I had worked really hard to lose.

However, there is always a silver lining and the silver lining to my weight gain was that it renewed my motivation to keep on losing. I began this past week with new determination and I stepped back onto the treadmill and started running again as well as keeping good track of my points and making an earnest effort to make good snack and meal choices. I was very determined to get back those 2 pounds that I had gained.

This morning was my weekly weigh in and today I was overjoyed. Not only did I lose the 2 pounds that I gained last week, I lost an extra pound. That puts me below my initial weight loss goal. Today I set a new weight loss goal of 10.2 pounds. I have already lost a total of 11.8 pounds. If I lose the next 10.2 pounds in a reasonable amount of time, I will reach a secondary goal that I had set for myself to lose about 20 pounds by summer. Sure, I will still have a long way to go but for some reason I have a feeling I will stay motivated through the summer if I manage to lose the next 10.2 pounds before summer starts.

It's really easy for me to lose my motivation and talk myself out of doing what I need to do. If I have a bad day or make one bad choice, I start telling myself how pointless it is for me to keep trying. I start thinking of how nice it would be to just eat whatever I want and I even reason with myself that it isn't so bad being overweight. Then I eat more and start to feel more guilty. It's a vicious cycle. I had never realized before that I am a bit of an emotional eater. I guess I can thank Weight Watchers for helping me to learn that about myself.

The problem is that when the dust settles, I remember that my blood sugar has been high and that I am not an overweight person with good eating habits. I think it is very possible to be heavy and healthy. I know people who are plus size who have excellent eating habits. I truly believe that some people are just built bigger than others. That is not the case for me. I am overweight because I make poor dietary choices and lead an inactive lifestyle. If I eat right and stay active, I will lose weight because my body is made to be a lot more slender than it is right now. So after I eat my feelings away, I realize that I am not very healthy and that I am setting a really bad example for my kids.

I don't want to be a bad example for my children in any way, especially not when it comes to being healthy. I want my kids to be healthy and active and to enjoy their lives. It starts with me. I have to be healthy and active and enjoy my life with them and hope that they will follow suit. So when I have a bad week and I gain back 2 pounds, I need to be aware that my kids are watching and learning from my behavior. When I have a good week, they are seeing me as well and I hope that they are learning from that. I need to remember that as I change, I am leading by example.

Wish me luck as I enter into the coming week. My goal is to lose two more pounds and to work out three times. I think those are reasonable expectations to set for myself.

Lowering My Standards.

After having breastfed my older son for 26 months, when I became pregnant with my nine week old I talked a big game. I both knew immediately and still know now that I would breastfeed him until he weaned himself, no matter when that was. I entered into parenting him with the intent of breastfeeding for at least two years.

Over the past nine weeks it has become clear to me that I cannot think like that. I need to set shorter goals for myself when it comes to breastfeeding or I am going to get frustrated. If I think in terms of breastfeeding for two years, I start to think about the back pain and the leaking milk and the constant sweating and milk smell that comes from holding a hot little body and feeding him all the time. Those thoughts are intimidating when I think of them in terms of two years.

I have decided that I am going to think of them in shorter terms in order to help myself get through it. When I was breastfeeding the last time, I set an initial goal of six months and when I hit that goal I realized that it would be really awesome if I made it to one year. After a year I felt like that was too short and eighteen months was really a more suitable time to start thinking about weaning. When eighteen months rolled around, I noticed that I had friends who were still nursing their two year old. My inner competitive bitch was not to be outdone. I just knew that I had to make it to two years.

Those short, six month goals left an end in sight for me. I could imagine the day when
I would be able to leave my baby without having to rush back to nurse him. I could imagine a time when the smell of milk would not seep from my pores. I could envision a little bit of autonomy when I thought of nursing in terms of shorter goals. I liked that. It was bearable for me that way.

This time around, the things that are hard for me are somewhat different. I still don't like that I am constantly a sweaty, milky disaster, but I don't mind the thought of my baby being attached to me for two years. What is really getting to me is the back pain. Being hunched over my baby, nursing him is painful for me. I am only really comfortable when nursing if I do it laying on my side. The problem is that I can't lay down to feed him all the time, there are other things (and people) that I have to take care of.

Thinking about enduring this back pain for another 22 months was making me crazy. It made the thought of a nice, easy bottle of formula given by daddy sound like a brilliant idea. It would offer me some relief if I could supplement. It would give my back a much needed break every once in a while. It just sounds so good when I think of 22 more months of nursing. I don't want to do that, though. I don't want my baby to ever receive any formula. I want him to have only the best, and my milk is the best. I can't turn my back on my beliefs and give him formula even if it means some relief for my back. So I'll get through it the best way that I can. I'll think of it in the short term.

This means that as of today, I am a little bit more than one third of the way to my six month goal. Go Me!

Ignorance Should Not Be Blissful.

A couple of days ago I awoke to a very active Facebook feed. My mom friends had gone crazy and all of them were posting the same link. Apparently the AAP has changed its recommendation regarding car seats. The new recommendation can be found here. For many, including myself, this was a long awaited development. Personally, I have known for a very long time that rear facing is the safest position to ride in a vehicle. In fact, everybody would be safer rear facing but we all know that the driver could not rear face for practical reasons.

There is a ton of information available on the subject and any parent or caregiver wishing to research their options should be able to easily find what they need. A couple of really good articles and resources are as follows:

Here

Here

Here

The evidence in favor of leaving your children rear facing as long as possible is overwhelming. Yet, I was surprised to find a number of people on Facebook saying that this new recommendation by the AAP was "stupid" and saying that they wouldn't be putting it into practice unless it became a law. Many of them were utterly convinced that their child was too big to rear face past one year. Some people stated that their child's legs were too long and were crunched up, some stated that their kids outgrew their seats. There were some who were convinced that their kids would have been hurt worse if they had been rear facing during specific incidents.

I am generally a "to each their own" type of person. But I draw the line regarding the safety of my children and regarding the safety of yours as well. These people are WRONG. Let me slow that down. These excuses are W-R-O-N-G. They are excuses. First, and foremost, rear facing is a matter of simple physics. I am not scientifically minded and even I know that. All that a parent has to do is watch one or two videos on extended rear facing to actually see the difference between an accident with a child who is rear facing vs. an accident in which a child is facing forward.

Children are flexible, they will make their legs comfortable. They will find a way to drape their legs over the sides of the seat or they will put them up on the back of the seat. And if, by some small chance, there was an accident and the child's legs were broken the legs would surely be a smaller concern than the spine. I would certainly rather have a child in a leg cast than a child in a casket, due to a broken neck. My son is a long, skinny type of guy and he rear faced comfortably in his car seat until December 2010, when he was 3 months shy of his third birthday. He never complained because rear facing was all that he knew. His legs were fine because he made them so. There goes that argument.

The other argument is that rear facing is only safer in a front end collision and that the parent is concerned over what would happen in a rear end collision. This is a wonderful account of rear facing in a rear end collision. Here is some information on rear end collisions and rear facing car seats. Certainly, in these cases, rear facing is not making the odds worse for the child.

Finally, the fact of the matter is that unless a parent is referring to the bucket-seat style infant carrier that we use in the first months of a child's life then it is highly unlikely that a child under one year would outgrow a rear facing seat. Most infant carriers fit children until roughly 22 pounds (in my experience). But after that, you do not have to turn your child around. There are plenty of options available in all price ranges to keep a child rear facing beyond the 1 year and 20 pound minimum. Let me say that again, 1 and 20 is the MINIMUM. My long, skinny son also rear faced in a Cosco Scenera until he was over 2. The Scenera is found here and it is extremely budget friendly. In fact, my son only had to be turned in his Scenera because of his height. He is now three and has just barely crossed the weight threshold for that seat (and it is my understanding that the Scenera has a lower rear facing height in comparison with many of its competitors, so there are surely options for everyone).

In my opinion, it is ignorant to have these facts staring you in the face and to choose to remain ignorant. In fact, many of the arguments that I was seeing were based on convenience for the parents which is a whole new blog post in and of itself. Ignorance should not be blissful. To ignore facts about child safety, for whatever reason, does not make you a cool, edgy parent. It makes you a parent who is refusing to see truth at the expense of the well-being of your child. Ignorance should not be blissful and it certainly will not be blissful when a child gets an injury that could have been prevented by extended rear facing. I'm not suggesting that people run out and spend $300+ on car seats that keep their children facing rear until they are 18 years old. What I am suggesting is that we embrace the truth and we all leave our children rear facing until they outgrow the rear facing limits of their car seats.

For further reading, I suggest any interested parent or caregiver go to this site:

http://www.cpsafety.org/

It offers a plethora of information on car seat safety. I see at least two pictures of incorrectly used car seats on my Facebook feed every.single.day. This, to me, is unacceptable. It has to end. We need to keep our children safe. Keeping them facing rear is an easy way to start and it is one of the most crucial arenas in which we should be concerned about our children.

Goals and other things.

I just scored the winning goal. I hit my first weight loss goal today after 3 weeks of Weight Watchers. I'm really proud of myself because that means two things:

1) What I am doing is working and I am losing weight.
2) I am losing weight at a healthy pace that will enable me to keep it off.

I felt like a million bucks when I stepped off of the scale this morning. I still have a long way to go but if I keep losing at this pace, I will hit my goals in the amount of time I was hoping to.

I was really worried this wee that I would be tempted to over eat and I was concerned that my weight loss would halt because I didn't work out at all this week. I am not sure why, but I could never motivate myself to get on the treadmill. I would think about it and I had intentions of doing it many times but I talked myself out of it each time. This week I hope to do better. I need to run or otherwise work out at least three times.

I noticed this week that I was much more gloomy than I have been previously. Even though I managed to eat well, I still felt like "depressed Molly," much of the time. I think that exercise would have helped with that. Perhaps I would have been in less of a funk if I had gotten my endorphins pumping with a good run. I also ran out of my placenta pills last week, so I should have been even more mindful to exercise. I need to be doing everything that I can to stay ahead of my depression right now.

It's very important to me that I maintain my sanity. I remember what I was like two years ago and it was not pretty nor was it pleasant. I could barely get out of bed. I was failing as a wife and as a mother. Not to mention, I was failing myself as a person because I had let my depression get so bad that I couldn't even move. I had no fight left in me. I don't want to live like that ever again. I missed out on so many things with my family.

Depression ate me up and kept chewing. It never even bothered to spit me back out. As good as it feels to have seen that goal number on the scale this morning, I know in the back of my mind that right now I am extremely vulnerable to depression. I know that if I lay down, I could probably sleep all day. Sure, I would eat right at meal times but the other 23 1/2 hours each day I would be a lump in my bed. I've got to fight and the fight begins now.

On Natural Disasters.

We all know that last week there was a catastrophic earthquake in Japan. That earthquake led to a tsunami. Both events have led to a possible nuclear meltdown in Japan. I have a friend living in Japan who has been ordered to stay inside of her house in order to avoid the radiation. Watching the footage was horrifying for me. I sat here frozen in horror as I watched a wall of water taking over the streets of a Japanese town. I saw fires erupting and people fleeing. I watched from the other side of the world and I felt helpless. I would have done anything to help some of those people and to save some of those lives. Sadly, all I could do was to watch from the other side of the world.

Shortly after the disaster in Japan, the Facebook statuses started. Many of my friends seem to think that the end of the world is near. They believe that Jesus is coming back to Earth to take them up in the rapture. Earthquakes, they believe, are signs of the impending apocalypse. I am not here to crap on any one's beliefs. I don't do that. I hate when people do it to me, so I try my hardest not to do it to them. But I am here to say that natural disasters freak me out. They make me question the certainty of my existence and they make me doubt and mistrust the ground beneath my feet.

I hate the feeling that I have after a catastrophe strikes our planet. Whether it be a flood, an earthquake, or an act of terrorism, these catastrophes make me feel powerless and vulnerable. When I really start thinking about it, I realize that it's because I am powerless and vulnerable. I am a small person on a big planet. I have control over very little. It's terrifying. Perhaps that lack of control would feel better and less horrifying if I thought that Jesus was coming to take me to heaven. Maybe I could take comfort in the paradise that awaits me. It seems like if I was a devout Christian, all of this would be much easier to stomach. But I'm not.

I'm not a convinced, faithful follower of Christ. I'm at best a skeptic and possibly an atheist. I'm just unconvinced. I'm not ruling out that there may be a God and that he may be sending signs that he's going to bring an end to our puny, human existence. But I am also not ruling out the possibility that we have simply abused our planet too much and now it's changing. Either way, I am powerless. Either way, I don't want to think about it.

As a mother, I want my children to grow up. I want my kids to experience life and grow up and fall in love. I want them to go to college and read books. I would love it if they got the opportunity to live abroad and meet new people. I have hopes and dreams for my children that don't include not being able to save them as the ground crumbles beneath them and we all fall into a flaming abyss. But my fears and my desires don't change the fact that if it's going to happen, there is not much that I can do about it.

All I can do is keep doing what I am doing and hope for the best. I don't want to sit here and stress about the impending apocalypse. I know that some people might be excited about it because they believe that they get to go home to Jesus, but I'm not. Even if there is a Jesus and my kids get to go and be with him, I still think it sucks that they don't get to live out their lives. And more than anything, I am really sick of people on Facebook reminding me that my children's untimely demise is a possibility.