Resolved

I thought this week that the kiddos were both going back to school, but it turns out Sean doesn't start until Friday. Which is fine, but I have him home still. But when I thought he was going back, I had plans for this week to be my "New Year" of sorts. I was planning to start the diet, start the going back to the gym plan for losing 30 (at least) pounds by Halloween. Which I still am doing-- it just starts next week, instead. (Well, the formal workout part of it at least).

When I was in grad school I had scooted my weight up about where it is now, actually, even without the help of having two kids in the middle of it. "Giving birth" to the dissertation was labor enough. But I lost most of it; 50 pounds of fat to be exact (I gained a bit of muscle during that time so it didn't necessarily round out to a total loss of 50 lbs). During that time, I even became, for a short while, an aerobics instructor. Certified and everything. Really. That lasted, oh, a few weeks. Then I was pregnant. And I could have kept doing it until that day I got a flu-ish bug and my boss at the gym basically was going to make me lead a class while pregnant with twins and flu-ish. I told her to get bent.

Anyhoo-- I digress. The point is this: today, in spite of the fact that I am not as I had planned going back to the gym yet I am starting my diet/exercise plan. I actually AM going to bellydancing class tonight, and that will give me a little bit of a workout (probably a bit more than last week... and I was even a little sore then). I'll try not to over load the blog/facebook with too much diet talk; that can get really boring really fast. But this is the official start of the quest to look like my anarchy cheerleader by Halloween again. (If you know not what I speak of there, look in my facebook old pix file). I can do it; I will do it.

Of course, the added bonus is that in order to lose all that weight I'm not drinking for at least 6 weeks, and there will not be any more melancholy too much red wine posts like there was last night. Oy! What a silly head sometimes! Tell the whole Internetz, why don't you? So this resolve is strengthened by this morning's not silly but icky head.

Broken & Lost Things

When you live with two four year olds who are as rambunctious as mine you find yourself pulling out the super glue all the time. Yesterday the sweet little beehive honey container I found got knocked into the sink & thus needs its turn with the glue. Over our road trip, Maia lost a new treasure from her pirate trip at a stop in FL. She figured it out fairly soon (about an hour later) but there was NO way on an 8 hour road trip we were turning around for two hours extra for a stuffed dolphin toy.

I remember a friend of a friend once talking about how she would hide the dead rolly pollies when her kid split them in half by accident, pretending the new one was the same one when the child said "fix it." I remember thinking that was a bad idea-- some things can't be fixed, and even a 2 year old can and should learn that, especially when it's life, and even when it's only a rolly polly life. Sometimes, especially Sean, breaks things over & over again and the glue runs out. But sometimes you gotta leave it broken, I think.

It gets me to thinking about the things we lose & break in our lives. Simple things you put a bit of superglue on and hope they hold. When I was a kid, I moved around so much and lost everything I owned many times. Perhaps this explains my own odd attachment to trying to fix things, to trying, as I did yesterday, to buy a new toy to try to make up (at least a little bit) for the lost one.

Yesterday at our "problem" rent property, the kids from the back apartment were in the patio for the house poking the ceiling with a metal rod. These kids have most likely been breaking in to the currently untenanted (we're working on it) large house, and probably cut the new screen door. They're about 11 or so, and ought to be trustworthy to leave unattended sometimes, but they aren't. They're constantly in to stuff, and terribly destructive. It may get them kicked out of our place because we won't let our cool places be totally trashed.

It got me thinking, as usual, about my own childhood and my own times alone, and I spent last night feeling, generally, kind of sad and a little mad. Not because my childhood was like theirs but because, overall, it could have been similar but wasn't. And I guess we learn different lessons differently, because I don't LIKE breaking things. And I think, and hope, that my kids are going to feel sad about it too. The loss is sometimes forever and can't be superglued, and a new toy doesn't necessarily replace the old one.

But that's a tough lesson to learn, and I hate watching my kids learn it too.