My kids' grosser than yours....

Yesterday, we had beautiful weather.  It was sunny, and about 70 when we got home.  The girls sprinted for the back yard, and I, happy and alone, began making dinner.  As the soup I was making began to simmer, I sat down at the computer to enter the recipe and point it out so I could track it.  As I was doing this, the dog came running inside.

Mia was yelling at the dog to come back outside, and he was running around like a little maniac.  That's when the smell hit.  *sniff, sniff* "What is that?"  It smells like a barn with cows. Why does the dog smell like a barn?  "Mia, why does the dog smell?

"He rolled in poop, Mommy."

"GET OUTSIDE!!!!!"

We got the dog outside, and Olivia came inside to get the dog shampoo, a bucket and washcloths.  The girls began washing him pretty much everywhere.  There was poop on the collar, which was taken off an thrown into the yard.  Olivia claimed we needed a new one.

I came to help and scrubbed the poop out of the dogs shaggy curly hair.  Once we could finally see no more poop, on him, he was dried off.  The girls, thought this was their cue to go back to playing.

"Uh...do you really think you get to go back to playing when you've had your hands in poop-water and been cleaning poop off the dog? Get inside and wash those hands....AND DO A GOOD JOB!"

The girls come in as I'm filling the washer with the dirty dog cleaning supplies.  They try to run out doing a quick cleaning job, but I call them back in to wash hands again.  While in the bathroom, I'm behind them, watching them wash.

"What happened?  Were you cleaning up the dog poop?"

"No"

Then Mia pipes up.  "It was my poop."

Uh......what?

"Do you mean that you pooped outside?  You took your tights off, and your underwear down and you pooped - IN MY YARD?!

"Yes"

"And the dog rolled around in it somehow?"

"Yes"

~File this under things you never would have thought you'd have to tell your daughter.  "We do not poop in the yard.  We poop in the toilet.  We are not dogs.  Dogs poop outside, people use toilets inside."~

Linking up with Greta for #iPPP

Body Image Thoughts...

I have been freaking out lately.  I'm stuck at a plateau in my weight loss.  I had almost hit 70 lbs off - I only had .8 more pounds to go.  Then, Easter hit.  I OD'd on ham, and gained 5 lbs.  Somehow, I gained 5 lbs over the course of about 2 days.  My friends cite sodium, water retention, etc.

I don't know.  I'm still not able to lose that weight.  I've only been to one meeting over the past few weeks.  I'm not ashamed of myself or how I've been eating.  I'm pissed off at the other people there that are losing and celebrating that.  That's right!  Yes, on some level I'm happy for them.  But on a much closer level, I'm jealous.  I'm angry that it's not me.  I'm angry that I'm not figuring out why I can't seem to lose this weight.  I'm angry that I am working out quite a bit but somehow am not able to get over this hump.

This is stressing me out.  I'm not sleeping real well.  I'm constantly worrying about what I am going to eat and when.  Did I get enough vegetables? Water? etc.  Then you add to other things that are stressing me out, and I'm about ready to give up.

No.  Not give up on weight loss.  I'm too flippin' close to my goal.  I'm about 40 lbs away.  That's it.  I want it gone.  However, I am ready to give up on everything else.  Just crawl into a corner until I can figure things out.

And, I figured out something.  I don't feel good about myself right now.  Normally, I feel good about myself.  I enjoy making myself look pretty.  I like to have good hair days.  I like to feel like I look good, to take some measure of pleasure from my appearance.  But you know what?  My thighs are still too big.  My legs in general are big.  And, my belly?  And that lovely after-pregnancy-plus-I-weigh-too-much overhang?  What the hell am I going to do about that?  I have a muffin top in my workout clothes.  This is ridiculous.  I've lost close to 70 lbs, and I still am fighting belly/thigh/upper arm issues.

Will I ever feel like I look good enough?  When my friends talk about how they feel about their bodies, I generally try to make them feel better.  But now, I worry about them too.  Is this really how they see themselves?  How come I can see them as the beautiful, smart, strong women they are?  How come I love the difference in their bodies versus mine?  I'm so jealous of some of the things they hate about themselves.  But truly, if they see themselves they way that they talk about (my booty's too big, my legs are too big, I look like I'm pregnant, my arms flab all over) and I can't convince them of how I see them, is there any chance that I will truly be happy with my body?  Will I continue to complain and talk about how I look?  Or someday, when I'm down to my goal weight (and I WILL BE), will I be happy with the way I look?  Will I be able to look back and see the girl I was, and the girl I am now and be proud of the changes that I wrought in this body?

A Sunday Pictorial....

Have you missed me?  Yes, I have totally missed you.  I haven't been writing when I should, I've been letting the ideas store up in my head (really, not a good place - things get lost in there).  I've had some stress, but we'll talk about that later.  Right now, I'm a little overjoyed that I'm feeling some sun on my cheeks, and we had some nice weather.  With the nice weather, my real (non-iPhone) camera has come out.  So, I get to grace you with a pictorial of us, outside.

Because the weather was so nice today, we really made some of it.  We fixed up Mia's big girl bike, found the bike helmets, put the dog on the leash, and walked to the "big park."

Here's Mia on he big girl bike.  She did really well with the training wheels and was even telling me to stop holding on.  This was her first time.

Olivia took a picture of Mommy and Daddy playing around on the modern day "teeter-totter".

Tony and Olivia horsing around.

Taking breaks from the phone to push Mia in the swings.

This is JoJo.  He's the dog we got around Christmas.  He joined us for our adventure in the park.

This is Mia - notice the big girls swing.  Seriously.  This kid is growing up.  I held her after Easter while she watched a movie and fell asleep in my arms.  I was in tears later that night thinking this might have been her last time to fall asleep in my arms.  Someone let me know that it'll be alright that my baby is growing up.