Turn Around

 Good morning everyone!

I hope everyone has had a great week! I have. We pulled off a great eclipse event in Jasper County on Monday and yesterday I got to spend the day with my mom, with no doctor visits involved! We were still on a mission, but it was an adventure. I treasure the days I get to spend with my mom. I also treasure days I get to spend with my son and some conversations I have had this week has brought me to this post.

Until Robert was almost 7, I was a stay-at-home mom. That wasn't the original plan but it was God's plan and that was what was important. When we moved to Pennsylvania 6 weeks before he was born, I knew I wasn't gong to trust anyone enough to take care of him. Especially when the first news we heard when we got the tv hooked up was how a babysitter had put a baby in a dryer and killed him. 

I am so glad I had the opportunity and I treasure that as I know there are a lot of families out there that it just can't happen for anymore. I was also fortunate in when I did go back to work, I had one very good babysitter and my mom who took Robert until he was old enough to stay by himself. 

I have so many good memories of things we did. And actually, going back to my own mom, who was able to stay home with me, I have two generation memories. 

One of my favorite little kid memories was sitting on the front step eating lunch with my mom, she would fix my lunch in the summer and bring it out and she and I would sit on the front step and eat it. I was one of those kids that, if it was summer, I wanted to be outside. Probably why I drive a convertible and my two favorite places on my own property is my front porch and the back patio. I also remember my mom doing things with me though. As I got older, we would play Scrabble, or do puzzles. We took walks and of course, we would work. My mom and her brother took care of my grandmother until she died when I was 18. Mom would go to my grandmothers daily and fix lunch so in the summer I would help. That was a good thing because the summer of my junior year, my mom knew she was going to have to go to the hospital as her diabetes was causing some problems and she was holding out until I got out of school so I could take over lunch duties. My mom is very much where my work ethic, as well as my feelings about being responsible comes from. And as I look at Robert, I see he has gotten those same things from me.

I was telling a friend this week about some of the things we did when Robert was little. One thing we used to do was if we were someplace at least 30 minutes away, we would try to get home without getting on any major highways any more than we had to. There was one Saturday afternoon that Robert and I had went to town to get groceries. I was still staying at home so there was a pretty good chance that the bank account wasn't looking great, especially after groceries, but Robert has asked if we could try to get home without the highways. I told him no, we need to get on home, on top of everything else, I was running close on gas. He was fine with it, but I wasn't. we got about a mile out of town and I turned around, went and got $5 in gas and we took our time getting home. We did that game many times but he remembers me turning around.

My friend was telling about similar situations where one of her kids will want to play catch right as she is trying to fix supper. She turns off the stove and plays catch for a few minutes. And it makes such a huge difference.

It makes those kids want to spend time with you, and as you get older, the more you treasure that your kids want to spend time with you. When I hear Robert tell someone things that we have done together, it melts me. I know, respect and truly love a lot of people, but that relationship with my mom and the one with Robert are two of the absolute most treasured.

We often quote verses about parenting such as Train up a child in the way he should go, and Children, Obey your parents (This was one of the first verses I helped Robert memorize, lol). But I want to point out a few other verses to you today. 

Psalms 127:3-5a

Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from Him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.

Colossians 3:21

Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

Ephesians 6:4

Fathers, do not exasperate your children, instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Lots of verses reminding us to treasure God's gifts to us. 

And remember, nobody, absolutely nobody is perfect. God gives us parents to have a safe place to fall here on earth. I am a long way from the perfect parent, but I know Robert knows he can count on me and his dad no matter what and that is what is most important to me when it comes to parenting.

I am leaving you with one of my favorite songs, Needtobreathe's Fall on Me. This is a great song to describe what God wants the parent/child relationship to be. Both with Him as our ultimate Father, and with our children and parents here on earth. 

I also want to add a little perspective. One November morning, in 1980, my dad came in my room, pinched me on the butt and told me to get up, he continued to give me a hard time until I stood up in the bed, looked him in the eye and said, "I'm up already!" It was a fun moment. and one of my very last with him. He went home to be with Jesus at noon that day. I will remember that moment for the rest of my life.

The Journey Part 3

 Happy Saturday morning!

Haven't written about the weight loss journey for a while so I thought I would throw this in today.

First off, I made it to ONEDERLAND!! Actually a couple of weeks ago, and now I am at 147 lbs down, or 196 lbs. Andrew weighs 190, so of course my next two goals are hitting the 150 down mark and hitting 189 so I weigh less than him.

I left off last time at being at 209, new baby, not being able to lose weight and being told I was just having a little post partum depression. 

Well, we moved back to Illinois when Robert was 18 months old, we moved to Pontiac, about 1 1/2 hours south of Chicago. Life was going along fine, I was still fat but wasn't gaining, I wasn't eating, but I wasn't gaining so that was at least good. I kept deciding sometime surely I would lose my baby fat. 

Then, one day, w were cleaning out the garage and I picked up a trash bag that had broken glass in it. The bag was heavy and I hoisted it up my leg to help leverage the weight. It had a piece of broken glass in it and the weight of the bag against my leg ran the glass deep into my thigh. Deep enough I had to have 11 stitches. (Note: always wrap broken glass in newspaper or something when putting it in the trash: lesson learned). 

Since we were only a little over 3 hours from home, I came home and went to my mom's doctor to have the stitches removed. Andrew worked a ridiculous amount of hours, I didn't have a babysitter in Pontiac and this seemed easier. So, at 12 days out, the doctor went to remove the stitches and decided they hadn't healed. My mom being a lifelong diabetic, and her families history of diabetes, it was the first thing they checked but my sugar was in the normal ranges. They then checked my thyroid and found out it was basically not functioning at all. Robert was almost 2 and the doctor figured I had started with postpartum thyroiditis. So, he put me on thyroid medicine but since I was also overweight and he had found the reason I wasn't losing, he put me on Fen-Phen, which was a combination of fenfluramine and phentermine. I went from my 209 to 145 in about 6 months. Then we moved to Indiana.

My new doctor in Indiana would prescribe any more Fen-Phen as it had just came out that it was causing heart valve issues. He also decided that he would take me off the thyroid meds to see where we were at. 

I gained all my weight back but my thyroid levels would come back fine. So, once again, I was at 218 and stayed there for a long time. I wasn't watching what I ate, wasn't working out, I had just decided to face facts and live with it.

We moved to Olney in 1998, and started working for ERBA in 2000. I weighed my 218 the day I started working for ERBA. My supervisor fast become one of my closest friends and we started walking at lunch, eventually, we started working out and I would lose a few pounds and gain a few pounds and I continued to do that for literally years. I changed jobs in 2004, still working for ERBA but working at the Corporate office in Greenup. I weighed 250 when I started work there. We were living in Olney and I was driving to Greenup everyday so my work day became almost 2 hours longer. The thought of throwing exercise into that mix was laughable so I stayed at 250 for the next several years. I was wearing a size 20W and my health and weight, though I was always "trying", was not on the forefront.

This is probably a good stopping point for today. 

To be continued next month!

Happy Saturday!