Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
Dear son,
Two years ago today, you pushed your way into our lives hard and fast. And you haven’t slowed down since. 
Before you were born, I feared I wouldn’t love you enough, what with your big sister’s big personality. Now, I think sometimes I love you too much. You instinctively call for me and in the process shun help from others. I secretly love it, even when I force someone else to respond to your needs.
We understand each other in a way I wouldn’t have expected. Our personalities mesh. We don’t need people all the time. We’re content by ourselves. And we don’t want to be left out of anything. I’m looking forward to seeing how this develops in both of our lives.
You’re officially two today, but unofficially, you’ve been 2 in my mind for a long time. You walked before you were 1. You’ve been talking — to keep up with your sister — for practically as long, it seems. Nothing stops you or slows you down — not even the bumps and bruises of life that seem to find you more than they ever found your sister.
You are all boy, and though sometimes, I have no idea what to do with that, I love the differences you’ve brought to our lives. “Boy — a noise with dirt on it.” I saw this definition on a piece of scrapbooking paper. I laughed at the time, thinking it was clever. Now I know it’s true, too.
If there’s a puddle, you jump in it and splash through it. If too many leaves are gathered in one spot, you shuffle through them with a big grin on your face. “Again?” you ask, answering with another run-through before I’ve had a chance to answer. If you’re holding one object, you must find another to hit it against. And sometimes, you just rock out to your own beat.
And the sweetness. You aren’t always noisy or dirty or mischievous. Sometimes, you are so sweet, I want to cry.
“Please I may?” You’ve found the secret to getting your way. It doesn’t matter what you’re asking, when you ask with these words, my heart screams, “Yes!”
You faithfully give hugs (squeezes), kisses and noses, and your soft “I wuv you” is heart melting.
Some days, I want to skip the next 20 years and see what you become. OK, I don’t really want to skip them, but I want to see how God uses this personality. I joke that you’re going to play football because knocks to the head don’t seem to faze you. Your mother is another story. If you do play football, I will be the mother in the stands who can’t look but who will be there to support you, nonetheless.
A few hundred words can’t adequately capture all of who you are.
Maybe a video will help.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYc8Y9Xi7bQ]
And another picture.
It’s true that we seem to take less pictures of just you than we did of your sister. I confess that we celebrated every milestone in picture with her. I fear the condition of your baby book compared to hers.
But don’t ever believe that we loved you less than her. Yes, she was our first child. But you are our first son. And that is something special, too.
Happy birthday, little man. You won’t stay little, so I’ll say it as long as I can.
The journey to 2 has been a wild ride so far. I’m certain the next year will bring us more wild times, too.
Love,
Mom
Five months ago, I made a promise. I pledged to donate money for every pound I lost by the end of the year. Others joined the pledge, either with donations or support or a weight loss pledge of their own.
I’m here to tell you that I’ve failed. But that’s not the end of the story.
Since I made that promise, I overate at church camp. I let my workouts slide while we visited family in Illinois two different times. I ate “comfort food” after our basement flooded and I didn’t want to deal with the reality of clean-up and loss. And I took the month of November to write a novel.
So I find myself here, the 1st of December, having made negative progress, closer to 200 pounds than I’ve ever been when not pregnant or just having had a baby. Yet I’m resolved to not give up.
I restarted my twice-a-week 5 a.m. workouts this morning. And even though Christmas is coming, and sweets and goodies abound, I’m determined to keep it under control.
Can I just say what I’m thinking?
I DON’T WANT TO BE FAT!
There. That’s my fear. I see the misery in the faces of Biggest Loser contestants and I know that not much separates me from the downward spiral they’ve experienced.
Maybe that’s too dramatic. Or maybe it’s realistic. I just know that I’m not getting any younger and losing weight isn’t going to get any easier.
So.
I’m restarting my quest to lose weight and raise money for widows and orphans in Liberia. And I’m extending my deadline to March, at least.
“What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.” — Mary Pickford, actress. (Also similar to a Chinese proverb.)
I have fallen. But I will get up.
I will check in monthly, here, with my progress.
Stay tuned.
And help inspire me.
How do you keep your weight loss goals?