Is it just me or did January just fly by?

Before I knew it, it was time to take my monthly pictures again. I found myself standing in my friend, Andrea’s living room again wearing those tight yoga shorts that emphasize every physiological flaw in my derriere. (Which… for the record I would never wear to an actual yoga class. Nobody wants to see that down dog.)

In other words, I had been dreading this day all month long. I am fairly certain the result is going to hurt my feelings.

I took my “before” pictures shortly after Christmas and I still haven’t seen them. Taking before pictures isn’t that big of a deal because you are supposed to look like crap. (Even if it is your second round of “before” pictures.) But today was my first progress picture.

What if you couldn’t see the progress?

I couldn’t help but feel nervous when I pulled up to Andrea’s house.

When I asked her to take these photos for me I thought I would be super comfortable with it since I talk to her about anything/everything. But somehow when I looked up at her, masked by her super expensive camera, I couldn’t help but feel the awkward 13 year old that will forever remain embedded in my soul start to make an appearance. I just kind of froze in front of the camera forgetting to flex my ab muscles in an attempt at not sucking in my gut. I couldn’t help it I just felt self-conscious and in my frozen stupor I just let it all hang out.

I haven’t felt that self-conscious in a long time. Over the years I’ve kind of adopted an attitude of self acceptance. I really like who I am and I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter if you agree but as far as I’m concerned… I’m pretty awesome.

But for some reason, today, when I donned those ugly shorts all of the confidence vanished.

Everyday when I see my middle schooler’s roam the halls emanating their prepubescent self-aware-but-not-really-aware awkwardness I can sometimes feel myself silently willing them to love themselves. Why can’t you see what I see?! I will silently scream at them.

Yet, there I was today trembling in my booty shorts…

What gives?

I still haven’t seen the results of those photos. Andrea is taking the time to add a watermark to ensure that my pictures don’t get stolen again. I’ll be posting the result sometime this weekend. Honestly, I don’t mind putting it off while she edits them. I will pretty much do anything to stall on that 🙂

When I weighed in this morning I had no idea what to expect. This week was all over the map. On Saturday I woke up in the worst mood. I just couldn’t shake it. So instead of glaring at my family all day long I decided to head outside for a nice long run to see if I could improve my spirits. It was really cold outside but the time to myself was worth all of the shivering.

After that run I quickly realized that I was in such a rotten mood due to the fact that I was exhausted. For the rest of the day I was completely useless. I had the hardest time keeping my eyes open. For the remainder of the day I was only capable of snuggling under blankets and watching movies. I didn’t even have the energy to eat and subsisted off of homemade popcorn and earl grey tea.

I kept trying to caffeinate myself awake, but even that didn’t work. I started to worry that I was seriously getting sick or that I was pregnant because I hadn’t felt that fatigued in a long time. I went to bed at seven that night.

The next morning I woke up just as the sun made its appearance. As the sun streamed through the windows the fog had lifted and I was ready to make up for lost weekend time.

We started off the day with big sticky bowls of oatmeal and headed straight for the book store in remembrance of our old farmer’s market/ book store excursions we used to take when the weather was warmer. The farmer’s market isn’t ready yet, but the book store always is…

In the mean time, Penelope has decided that she is a pirate named Jake. (She got this from the cartoon Jake and the Neverland Pirates.) While we were at the book store she made friends with a little boy and their introductions sounded like this:

Boy- “Hi, my name is Ezra. What’s your name?”

Penelope- “I’m Jake!”

Boy- “Uh… Jake is a boy name and you are a little girl.”

Penelope- “I’m not a girl. I’m a boy.”

Boy- “But you have braids, so you are a girl.”

Penelope- “They’re not braids.”

Boy- “I mean pigtails, you have pigtails so you are a girl.”

Penelope- “Those aren’t pigtails. They’re cat ears.”

Boy- “Oh (?)…”

After an hour they were best friends, so I ended up exchanging phone numbers with his mom. We went home just long enough to fill up on some chicken harvest soup and headed out again to play at the park and fit in another run…

It was absolutely beautiful outside! The kids were giggling, the dogs were barking and the kites were dangling in the air. We just couldn’t bare to go inside… so we didn’t.

 

We stayed to chase remote control cars and feed the ducks. The whole time Penelope introduced herself as Jake to all of her new friends. We didn’t dare go inside until the sun slipped behind the mountains.

It was beautiful for the remainder of the week. After work we went on family bike rides and I was even crazy enough to go for a sunrise walk and talk with my friend Andrea on the same day that I had parent/teacher conferences. Fifteen hours later when I got home from work I was super tired, but decided the sunrise was worth it.

I felt a lot of mommy guilt for working so much, so when I got home from work yesterday I snuggled the girls and watched more movies. Penelope was super clinging and fell asleep on my chest. As we lied there I could feel her temperature creeping up. You could tell that she was feeling under the weather, so I didn’t leave the couch all evening. That night we all tucked in and watched Mr. Peabody and Sherman.

Later that night when I tucked her into bed I kissed her forehead and said, “Good night Penelope.”

She said, “I’m not Penelope.”

“I’m sorry… Goodnight Jake.”

“I’m not Jake. I’m Sherman.”

“Okay, good night Sherman.”

She whispered, “Goodnight Mr. Peabody.”

She was feverish all night and I had to get up a couple of times with her throughout the night. I felt tired and hung over this morning when I woke up. I stumbled into the bathroom and stripped down for the weigh in. I had no idea if I would lose any weight. I was trying to be as quiet as possible so that I wouldn’t wake Penelope up. The scale creaked under my feet and read 200.4. So close to being under that dreaded 200 pound mark! I’m down 1.6 pounds from last week and eleven pounds in a month.

Who knows, maybe we will see a difference when I get my photos back.

As I stepped off the scale and started to put my clothes back on I heard a little voice across the hallway say…

“Mr. Peabody! I’m awake now!”

“Okay Sherman… I’m coming.”

😉