Shopping Cart Saga

*Disclaimer: Only read this if you promise not to judge me too harshly!!

This story is too long for a Facebook post, so a blog post it is!! So I have one of those "makes you feel terrible as a parent" stories to share with you. Except I wish I didn't! And I neglected to post this on Facebook the day it happened because I was afraid of being chastised for this happening in the first place! Here we go:

A week ago last Friday (so 10 days ago), we made a trip to Walmart. I don't know about you other moms with more than one kid, but ever since Zane was old enough to sit up safely in the shopping cart, he's been the one in the front of the cart and Karys sits in the basket part. If we're there for a lot of stuff, we get the mega cart that has the other section for 2 extra kids to sit. But if I'm only there for a short list of stuff, I really don't like pushing that thing around. Plus, I usually get the kids loaded into the cart at one of those cart stalls in the parking lot and there's rarely a big cart in one of those stalls. And like any normal kid, Karys occasionally tries to stand up in the cart. I never purposefully allow this because I know it's dangerous. If she stands up, I always tell her to sit back down. Except this one time.

We'd just pulled up to the checkout line and were standing still, not moving. Karys stood up and I decided I wasn't going to say anything because we weren't moving. She wasn't trying to do anything...she was just standing there. I turned my head to look at the covers of all the magazines. Literally, I looked away for a few seconds. When I looked back, it was too late. What I think happened was Karys tried to sit on the edge of the cart. What I saw was her falling backward off the side of the cart. She narrowly missed hitting that big display at the checkout with all the candy and snack foods! Of course she immediately started crying. I picked up quickly and tried to comfort her. I noticed that a bump was immediately forming on the back of her head. A woman got in line behind me and asked if she had hit her head. When I said yes, she said she heard her head hit from quite a distance away. She was very nice though, and told me she would put my groceries on the conveyor belt so I could hold Karys.

When we got home I looked up online about kids falling out of shopping carts and found all kinds of blogs that said things about "don't let your kid stand up in the cart!" Not helpful...I already knew that! But I knew that the symptoms of a concussion had to do with throwing up, being dizzy, disoriented, etc. And since she didn't seem to have any of those problems I let her eat lunch and then take her nap.

Fast forward 5 days to last Wednesday. I was giving her a bath and while washing her hair I noticed a decent sized area on her head that was squishy to the touch. I thought it was really weird and when a friend came over later to hang out, I had her feel it and we both decided I should make a call to the doctor's office. I was told by the nurse that as long as it wasn't dented in, it should be fine. She said if it was indented it could possibly be a skull fracture. I couldn't feel anything dented in, so I thought we were probably okay.

Over the weekend the "squishiness" was going down and we noticed that the feel of her head was different. The opposite side was nice and smooth and this side was a little bumpy. I called the doctor's office first thing this morning to get her in for an appointment. They were able to get us in with the nurse practitioner about 45 minutes after I called. She confirmed that her head was definitely bumpy and had some dents but said that everything seemed to be healing fine. I asked her if she thought she might possibly have a skull fracture. She said she didn't know but that she'd send us for an x-ray to find out for sure.

For her x-rays the technician told me that Zane was too little to be in there during the x-rays and she wasn't sure if Karys would be willing to do the x-rays if she was left in the room alone with this woman. I told Karys that Zane and I would be in the hall and she needed to do what the lady told her to do. A couple of times I heard the lady tell her to be still, but when she was finished and opened the door for me and Zane to go back in she told me that Karys did great. She said Karys told her that she likes to watch "Mary Poppins" and asked the woman if she liked Karys's dress. :)

We got a call from the doctor's office this afternoon with the results. She actually does have a skull fracture. But it's healing well on its own so no further action is going to be taken. I really can't believe it. When it happened, I was worried about a concussion and what I've read about those. I didn't even think about the possibility of a fracture! But maybe our story will be a cautionary tale for everyone else out there.

Race Update

My goal was to finish the race in 40 minutes or less. My friend, Jaime, and I finished it in 37 minutes 10 seconds. That impressed us, but what impressed us more was that we never stopped running. I was tracking the run on RunKeeper on my phone and we averaged 11 min. 50 sec. per mile. Granted, this time we weren't pushing strollers or anything, which made it a little easier. But we ran almost 2 minutes per mile faster than we've run all week! :)

A Fitness Journey

WARNING: This post contains potentially embarrassing information about me. Read only if you promise not to make fun of me for it. ;)

First, let me get the embarrassing stuff out of the way. Not sure why I'm divulging this...guess I just feel the need to let it all out in the open. :) But the embarrassing stuff is necessary to make my adult fitness journey make sense. So here goes...

Embarrassing Fact #1: I was a chubby kid. Here's what I remember: In 4th grade during the yearly physical fitness test (where you always get weighed), I remember weighing somewhere around 120. Most of the kids my age? Somewhere around 75 or 80, if my memory serves me correctly. Now, I will give myself that I was one of the tallest kids in the class. But still.

#2: I was a chubby teenager. In the 8th grade, I weighed about 160 and wore a woman's size 16. Seriously.

#3: As a kid/teenager, I HATED physical activity! Really hated it. I hated playing outside. I hated being sweaty/dirty. All of it. Hence why I weighed so much. Well, that and the fact that I loved to eat. :)

#4: Because of said hatred for physical activity, I never learned how to swim or ride a bike. Well, it wasn't only for that reason. I didn't learn the bike thing because I was afraid of falling off. I didn't learn the swimming thing because I have this intense fear of drowning and going underwater puts me in severe panic mode. For real.

I think that's enough embarrassing stuff for now. I think it'll help the rest of this post make sense. In my growing up years, I avoided physical activities at all costs. In fact, every year in elementary school when we had to do those physical fitness tests, I failed them MISERABLY. I could not run well worth a flip and I was so bad at it! I mean, that's what kids are supposed to do, right? Run? And yet to do the 1-mile run we were supposed to do, I walked most of it and felt like I was going to die! But I hated that I was one of the biggest kids in my grade. I didn't want to be, and yet I didn't seem to know how to fix it. 

Fast forward to high school. I joined band and the last two weeks of summer vacation were filled with band camp. Outdoors. Exercising pretty much ALL DAY! At first, it was SO difficult! Not to mention that they started our rehearsals with actual exercises, not just marching. We had to do a mile running or walking. Then we did all of these various arm and leg strength training exercises. When I started my freshman year, I was a size 16. After those 2 weeks, I'd dropped an entire size! I didn't change my eating, but by adding in the exercise, the weight just started falling off! The next year, during band camp, I dropped another size and stayed pretty consistent all through high school. So I wasn't one of the skinniest, definitely, but I didn't feel like I stuck out as one of the biggest either. 

Fast forward again to college. Living on campus meant I got quite a bit of exercise just having to walk around from class to class to the cafeteria to the dorm, etc. My freshman year I actually gained back some weight that I had lost that summer before because I was eating in the cafeteria most of the time. But once I got off campus I actually started to improve my fitness levels because the commuter parking lots were REALLY far away from anything! And since I tend to run late, it meant that I was usually booking it to get to class on time! So my junior year of college I decided to start getting into more of a fitness routine. I worked out regularly (and recorded my days that I worked out on my calendar with smiley face stickers!) in addition to having to walk all over campus. I ended up being the smallest I've ever been in my adult life. 

Starting that workout routine in college started me on a fitness journey that I'm still on and will always be on. When thinking about exercise, I had always thought, "I'll have to do this forever???" But once I'd incorporated it for awhile, it wasn't such a big deal. It makes me feel better about myself and it helps me maintain my weight, even when my eating isn't the best it should be. There are times that I don't do good with my workouts and I might go two weeks without doing anything. Luckily, that hasn't happened in awhile. But I can say that I haven't gone probably more than a month in my adult life without working out in some way. And that feels good. It also feels good to meet goals that I as a kid/teenager, I wouldn't have thought I'd be able to do. One of those is running. As you read above, I've never been a good runner. Even at the time of life when you're supposed to be good at it! But as an adult, I hate thinking that there are things that I can't do. I don't want my answer to challenges to be, "I can't do that." So I work on it. I'm not a good runner. Yet. I'm not a fast runner. Heck, I don't even run the entire time! But I try to do better every time.

And thanks to a former school friend/current facebook friend, I now use the RunKeeper app on my phone to track my mileage, average pace, and calories burned. It really helps me make sure I'm being consistent and not moseying along. Because if I can't burn massive calories, I don't really see the point! :) And knowing my average pace helps me compete with myself and try to do better each time.

And so...I'm doing something that my 12 year old self probably wouldn't have thought to ever be possible: I'm doing a 5K! I'm so excited about this!! Probably a little nerdily excited. :) My goal is to walk/run it in 40 minutes. Really, I'd like to do it in less than 40 minutes. I guess I'll find out this Saturday what I'm really capable of. :)

A Bedtime Story

Once upon a time, there was a very cute little girl. This little girl was 3 years old. She had recently learned how to use the potty. Every night when it was time to go to bed, her mommy would take her to the potty one last time. Then her mommy and daddy would pray with her and get her all tucked into bed.

Ten minutes later, the mommy and daddy would hear that familiar sound of the door opening, followed by the pitter patter of little three-year-old footsteps, and the words, "I have to go potty." The mommy and daddy were puzzled. "You just went to the potty; why do you need to go again?" But because the little girl was just in the beginning stages of learning to use the potty, they would let her go. And she usually did. And then she was sent back to bed.

If the mommy and daddy were lucky, the little girl didn't come out of her room anymore and fell asleep quickly. But usually the mommy and daddy were not so lucky. Time would go by and they would think the little girl was asleep. And just when they felt relieved that everyone was sleeping, the mommy and daddy would hear that familiar sound of the door opening, followed by the pitter patter of the three year old's footsteps, and the words: "I have to go potty!" And again, the little girl was given a chance to go to the potty.

This continued night after night. And the mommy and daddy wondered if the little girl was just trying to play them and look for ways to not have to go to sleep. But they wanted to believe their little girl. However, they were growing frustrated with their little girl taking up to two hours to fall asleep after being put to bed. And then the next morning, sometime before it was really a good time to get up, the little girl would come into mommy and daddy's room. "I need to go potty!" And mommy would get up and help her and when they were done, mommy would take her back to the little girl's room and tell her she needed to lay back down because it wasn't time to get up yet. And every morning, the little girl would lay back down in her bed, but wasn't able to fall back asleep.

The mommy and daddy wondered how long this phase would last. And they are still wondering...

to be continued...

(This is a picture of the cute little girl:

I Wish...

...Zane would realize he can take more than 3 steps at a time and just start going!

...that potty training Karys didn't mean that she would have a way to keep from going to bed. "Mommy, I have to go potty!"

...I wouldn't have to deal with weight. Why can't those extra pounds just fall off??

...everyone would believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the ONLY way to get into heaven.

...people wouldn't cuss at their kids (and on that note, teach their kids to cuss and think it's funny)

...I could take all of the kids that are being mistreated and bring them home to my house.

...we didn't have to deal with politics. Hearing everyone bash each other just gets annoying.

...I had a minivan!! Can't believe it, but it's true!

One Year Old

I started a blog last week about Christmas, and then what I was writing was boring me so I quit. :) So for now I'll just skip Christmas and go on to Zane's first birthday. It absolutely blows my mind that we're already talking about this boy being one!! Going from one kid to two has been so much fun and so much of an easier transition than going from zero to one, in my opinion. And I think that's what has made the year seem to fly by. This time around I had a lot more confidence in my abilities to take care of a newborn baby. Plus I already had one kid so it was like Zane just joined into our world..my world wasn't completely changed like it was when I went from having no kids to having one. No matter the reason, though, this year FLEW by!!

Since Zane's birthday falls right after Christmas (December 28), we didn't end up doing his party right away. On his actual birthday we were still at my parents' house so we just did a little family party. And when your birthday is so close to Christmas, it doesn't take any time for you to remember how to open presents!!

Zane did not disappoint us eating his cake! He did just as a one-year-old should do...he went for it! When it was all said and done he was sent straight up to the bath. :) Once the holidays had cleared out we still wanted to do a birthday party for Zane that involved friends who are important in our lives. As is becoming our "traditional" first birthday party, we did lunch for everyone, which this time consisted of hot dogs and chips. The most exciting part of lunch was that the night before the party I was setting out the food that didn't need to be refrigerated and I started telling Ryan, "Okay we'll do hot dogs here, chips and fruit here, drinks here, and cake here," and realized that with our new kitchen...there was enough room for everything!! Talk about a great feeling!! :)

Once again, Zane knew EXACTLY what to do with his cake! :)

At Zane's one year well-check he weighed in at 25.6 lbs. (84%) and 31.5 inches (91%). He still wears 18 month clothes, which is the longest amount of time he's spent in the same size in his whole life! He's been in 18 month clothes since about August and prior to that he'd been changing sizes every 6 weeks to 2 months! He did, however, move up to size 5 diapers!! Whew! Hope he stays in those for a long time!!! Just as a comparison, when Karys turned one she weighed a little over 17 lbs. and was still in 6-9 month clothes!!

At this point in life, Zane:

*loves the lights! He usually points at them first thing when you take him out of bed in the morning or at night.

*communicates most by pointing. For example, if I'm feeding him a couple of things for a meal, he'll point at which thing he wants a bite of! I'm sure words will follow eventually. ;)

*jabbers a lot!! He may not say real words yet, but he's definitely talking!!

*takes some steps independently. He'll take maybe 3 at a time and then get a little top heavy, or just get nervous and sit down!

*has 8 teeth!! Again, for a comparison: at this age, Karys had 2! I think he might be working on some one-year molars too. He sure does seem to keep sticking his finger in the back of his mouth and chewing on it.

*Just yesterday, he was playing "peek a boo" with my sister and instead of putting his hands over his eyes like she was, he was putting them behind his head!

*will hold up a phone to his ear (well, really it goes on his shoulder!)

*will clap his hands if you sing "If You're Happy and You Know It", or "Pat A Cake."

*thinks it's funny to be "wrestled." I'll play around with him on the couch and he thinks it's hilarious.

*has the most pitiful sad face and knows how to use it!! Likewise, he can be cuddly/clingy and knows how to make you feel sorry for him if you don't pick him up!

*Almost forgot! He got his first haircut the day after his birthday! Ryan said I had to wait until he was one. :) Poor guy isn't having as much luck with it growing on top, but the back was really growing out. Ryan said he had a baby mullett. :) So we got the back trimmed up and it's adorable!!

I had no idea what a joy a little boy would be to my life, but I sure am glad I know now!!

Reflecting...

I never seem to be able to make myself get on here and post. The truth is, as a kid I really enjoyed writing and as I grew older I still thought it was fun. As an adult, I still like it, but I guess not enough to make significant time for it. Plus, I don't always feel like I have anything interesting to say!!

I've been really debating writing a blog about my life and things I've been thinking lately and convictions I've had. Why the debate? Because I'm terrible with confrontation!!! There's a definite reason I wasn't interested in the debate team in high school! I'm terrible at arguing (I usually just back off and surrender), and I never want people to be made at me.

While all of those things are still true, I'm choosing to say what I'm really thinking and feeling, even if others don't agree with me. I feel like God has really been teaching me some things and I want to share those things. Maybe what I'm learning will make a difference to you, maybe it won't.

First off, weight loss. Zane is now 9 months old. I've been "trying to lose weight" for 9 months now, people!! When he was born, I was DETERMINED not to make the mistakes I made after Karys was born. After she was born I worked out, but definitely did not eat as well as I should have. I remember when she was about 6 months old thinking, "Maybe I'm just going to be this size forever." Then about a month after that, a friend started doing Weight Watchers and when I saw her having success, I had an "Aha!" moment where I realized that if I made some changes in what I ate and continuted with the exercising, I could have that success too. So when she was about 8 months old, I really started working toward weight loss. Sometimes I did really good, other times not. Overall, I lost about 25 lbs. Fast forward to 3 months before I found out I was pregnant with Zane. I was stuck in my weight loss efforts and realized that I relied on sweets and desserts WAY too much! They were on my mind a lot more than they needed to be so I made the decision to cut them out completely. I did this for 3 WHOLE MONTHS!! I've never gone that long without candy, cookies, ice cream, etc. in my LIFE!! But then I found out I was pregnant, which for me is almost a license to eat. :) So fast forward again to Zane being born. I was a lot more conscious once he was born about the fact that I didn't want to have a nonchalant attitude about getting back into my regular clothes...I wanted back in them ASAP!! I've been trying (without a lot of success until recently) to get back into those old clothes. Then a little over a month ago I realized that the sweets were causing me to sabotage myself. It really does no good to work out if you're just going to eat tons of ice cream later that day!! It kind of all cancels itself out. Basically my workouts were just helping me maintain my current weight. So I decided to give it up again. This time I haven't been quite as strict, but I'm still pretty strict. I've had a couple of sugar-sweetened sodas (which I didn't have last time I did this) because drinking a soda is not going to cause me to binge and give it all up. When we have our MOPS meetings (where we get to enjoy amazing breakfasts!!) I'll eat donut holes or other sugary things because, again, eating a donut hole is not going to make me run out and buy a container of ice cream. So after giving up the sweets, I realized that there was another thing causing me not to lose weight: fast food. I was picking up takeout at least once a week, especially on the weekends. And it would cause me to feel like I'd wasted a week of working out and eating well when I'd step on the scale on Monday morning only to see I'd either: a) not lost any weight or b) gained weight. It was because of all the sodium that's in fried food (and probably the fat too!) because it'd make me retain water. Feeling like you've done a good job all week, only to not see your efforts rewarded in weight loss can be depressing! So out went the fast food, too. And in my first week of doing that, I dropped 2.5 lbs.! Talk about motivation!

Through this experience I've really been feeling like I need to be doing what I can to honor God with my body. I was not created to be a sluggish, fat-filled being who sits on the couch eating and watching TV. That doesn't do anything to show God to people in their lives. Living with discipline honors God. I'm not sure how or when I'll add sweets or fast food back into my life. I'm a little scared to add sweets in because I feel like I'm probably a sugar addict and when I give myself a little, I just want more and more. Sometimes I wonder if, like a recovering alcoholic or drug addict, if I'm supposed to cut those things out of my life completely because I can't handle it correctly when those things are in my life. That thought makes me nervous!! What would life be like not eating cake at people's birthday parties (which I've already done!) or not enjoying ice cream out with friends (which I've already done!)? Hmm...

Another thing that I love and have cut out of my life (at least for now)? "Dancing with the Stars." I had so many conflicting feelings about this one!! If you know me, you know how much I love this show!! I don't even care if I don't like any of the stars on the show. Once the season gets started, I end up liking certain contestants even if I'd never heard of them before the season started (which is usually true of the athletes!). Once the stars for this season were announced, though, I was conflicted. I could not decide if I should watch the show because of Chaz Bono being one of the celebrities. I heard lots of backlash on TV about Chaz being on the show. The group, One Million Moms, was telling people not to watch the show because we shouldn't have to explain "transgender" to our young kids. People were accusing ABC of supporting the LBGT agenda by having Chaz on the show. Other people were accusing One Million Moms of being a hate group for speaking out against Chaz. Here's what I was feeling: for Chastity Bono to decide that God made her incorrectly and therefore it was up to her to fix the problem, becoming Chaz Bono seemed to me to be like a slap in God's face. Now, I know that homosexual people have been on DWTS before and I've still watched it but for some reason, the whole transgender thing wasn't sitting well with me. I do believe that homosexuality is a sin as well (the Bible clearly speaks about this), but this time I just really felt unsure. I was asking so many different trusted friends for their thoughts and opinions on whether or not watching DWTS this season was saying that I support people being transgender or not. And finally, the decision I came to (for me), was that if I was having to ask around so much it seemed like I was trying to justify something that didn't quite feel right in my heart. So I decided to listen to my conscience and do what seemed right for me and not watch the show this season. And trust me, it's been HARD!!! I see updates when I watch "Good Morning America" but I have to remember what is more important on this earth and that's following my convictions and living for Jesus. So that's what I'm trying to do. :)