It’s all up to me

My son had another seizure this morning.  He’s ok now but I’m hoping his neurologist has an idea of why these things keep happening even though we have upped his medication.  One of my students the other day mentioned that she has had seizures and she said that when they’re happening she just blacks out so at least I know he’s not feeling anything and that he’s not scared.  We are, but he’s not.

Obviously this has changed my plans for the day.  We have another snow day but the roads in town are ok so I was planning to take the boys to my SIL and get a ton of stuff done.  Now I’m going to take my older son down there but I’m keeping Kyle at home.  I’m also not sure if I’ll get a workout in today.  I completely realize that it’s ok if I miss, but what I worry about is if I miss one today and I know I won’t get one in tomorrow that I’ll go off the deep end.  Add to it that it’s my birthday tomorrow and I know there will be food this weekend, the boys have haircuts Saturday morning (which is when I normally workout on Saturdays) and it could add up to a bad few days.

And the thing is, I don’t want to eat bad foods.  If I wasn’t worried about hurting my MIL’s feelings I would ask her to cancel the cake/ice cream for tomorrow.  Maybe I can use today’s seizure to accomplish that without hurting her feelings.  Is that awful???  He doesn’t do well with crowds to begin with and after having had a seizure we’re more careful than usual.  I don’t know what to do, I just want to curl up in bed and not have to be the responsible one for once.

Well, it’s 3 am and I have been up for an hour now.  My younger son decided to get up and he’s not going back down.  I know it’s not deliberate but it always seems that he gets up when it’s my night to get up with him but not for my hubby.  I’m hoping he’s going to go back to bed soon but many times when he gets up he doesn’t go back down until 5 or 6.  The good thing is that we have a snow day today (another freakin’ snowstorm, 10 inches this time) so hopefully I should be able to get some sleep.  If my hubby doesn’t stay home I’ll have him take the kids to the sitters so I can sleep.

The reason I’m writing now is that for some reason I feel that I’m entitled to eat bad things when I get up with him.  I’m not a person who performs well without sleep so I get grouchy.  I know it’s normal but I feel awful for getting angry with my sick child for getting me up at night.  He’s not doing it on purpose and it’s not like we can let him cry it out like we did with our older son.  We asked our doctor but he said that Kyle wouldn’t learn the lesson we were trying to teach.

So fortunately we don’t have bad food in the house because I don’t know if I would have the strength to resist it.  Which is so stupid.  Who am I hurting or helping by eating something bad?  Do I think I’m getting back at someone by doing something I really don’t want to do?  But even though I know it’s stupid it’s still something I want to do.

I’m guessing this makes no sense because I’m so tired, I just wanted to vent so I didn’t try to tear my kitchen apart and find something we have forgotten about.  Hopefully I’ll be to sleep within an hour or so.  Then I will get in time on the treadmill today.  I told my hubby before we went to bed last night that I needed time to exercise.  I saved my episode of “X Weighted” for this morning because I know how hard days at home are for my eating.  Hopefully it will speak to me like the other episodes have so far.

I’ll write more when my head is clear.

If I didn’t know any better I would wonder if I am mentally ill because I think my TV is talking to me.  As you all know, my new favorite tv show is “X-Weighted”.  There have been several days where I have been wavering in my will-power and the person who they are following says exactly what I need to hear.  Yesterday, though, it was freaky.  They were following a mom who has a severly Autistic son and can’t find time to exercise because of lack of sleep, stress at home, stress at work, etc.  During the show (it covers a six month time period) they had to place their son in a facility because he became so physically strong that they could no longer control him.  It’s a good thing that I’m pretty coordinated on the treadmill because I was bawling.  With my son’s illness we should always be able to have him at home with us but I can’t say that placing him in a care facility is 100% out of the question as he gets bigger.

The thing that made me mad, though, is all of the people telling the mom that she needs to put herself first.  While I agree and I understand why this is necessary, it’s maddening to hear people tell you this when they have no clue what your life is truly like.  People tell me that all of the time, but how do I drop things and take care of myself when my child is only sleeping 2-3 hours a night, or has recently had a seizure, or one of the other things we deal with?  I am fortunate that my schedule works out so that I can exercise after school before they all get home but otherwise I don’t think it would happen.  It’s one thing to know you need to take time for yourself but it’s another thing to actually do it.

OK, enough griping.  On a positive note I was able to get back on track yesterday after my Sunday indulgence.  I was tempted a tiny bit by some peanut M & M’s that we had at school but I made sure the guys who teach by me ate them all before I reconsidered.  Then I put in an hour on the treadmill and did a little bit of Pilates so I felt good.

We ended up going completely against what I wrote yesterday.  It was early afternoon and the day was going fine.  I had gotten in a super-tough workout (my muscles still tingle today) and had a nutritious breakfast and lunch.  Then I saw a commercial for a place that makes gift baskets with sugar cookies for Valentine’s Day.  I love frosted sugar cookies.  I tried all of the old tricks; drinking water, chewing gum, keeping myself busy, but I couldn’t keep those cookies out of my mind.  Knowing how I work I realized it was better to give in to the craving and get it over with I sent my hubby to the store but instead of coming back with 1 frosted cookie (there was nobody working at the bakery counter) he came back with a dozen cookies and some frosting.  Do I need to explain what happened?  No, I didn’t eat the whole dozen but I know I pounded 3 or 4.  Then he was craving ice cream and being the supportive wife that I am I agreed to eat Culver’s for supper w/ice cream for dessert.

It was a lot, I know it was a lot.  But every bite was controlled.  I chose to eat it knowing that today is Monday and I will go back to being strict.  What made me tell myself this was ok was remembering when I lost about 60 pounds after I had my 1st son.  I would be very strict for 2 or 3 weeks and then take one day off.  It would help me get whatever cravings I had out of my system and allow me to refocus for the next couple of weeks.  And that is where I am today, focused.  I threw out the leftover cookies and frosting this morning and settled in for my regular breakfast.  My salad is packed for lunch and we have supper planned.  I will do an extra-long workout this afternoon and I will  not feel guilty about anything I ate yesterday.

Yay, my hard work last week paid off.  When I hopped on the scale this morning I was at 272.0, last week I was 275.0.  I was hoping to have a good result like this but as of Thursday I hadn’t lost any weight so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  In my head I knew that if I stuck with the good eating/exercising that it would pay off, I just wasn’t sure when.  I’m glad it was today to give me some momentum for this week.  I’m so excited to realize that by next week I could be in the 260’s.

Today is the superbowl but I’m not going to let that be an excuse to overeat.  First of all, there really isn’t a reason to because we’re going to stay home this year so we’re 100% in control of our food.  Secondly, my birthday is next weekend so I would rather save my splurges for then.

In general things are going well but I’m a bit frustrated because my hubby and oldest son are butting heads.  My son is very stubborn and my hubby likes to micromanage his behavior, not a good combo.  They just spend 20 minutes arguing about going to the bathroom before leaving for the store.  Yes, my son should try but we can’t make him.  I actually heard my hubby say “I don’t care if you have to go, go anyway.”  WHAT???  What I generally do if he won’t try potty before we go is say fine, but if we have to stop while we’re at the store then he will have to sit in his room for 15 minutes when we get home.  We are all stressed and my hubby responds to stress by getting grouchy which makes everyone grouchy.

So my goal for today is to not go off on my hubby.  Our younger son is down for a nap right now so when they get back I’m going to grab our older son and hang out with him.  It will give my hubby a break which will hopefully improve his mood and let our older son know that we want to be with him.  Sometimes we have to devote so much attention to our younger son that our older one feels neglected.  Maybe I just need to figure out how to clone myself, it would make life so much easier.

I ended up being able to workout yesterday (which is good) but the reason I was able to workout wasn’t.  I was just beginning the school day yesterday and my hubby called saying that our younger son had another seizure.  It was a fairly serious one but fortunately he recovered on his own and was breathing fine.  When I got there he was better but I took him home to keep an eye on him.  As usually happens after he has a seizure he took a good nap which allowed me to workout.  I just turned up the baby monitor in the living room and popped in the FIRM DVD.

I learned a few things about myself yesterday.  When I’m in the heat of the moment of a crisis I don’t want to eat.  This I already knew; when he almost died in August I had no appetite for the first whole day.  After the crisis passes, though, is when the emotional eating kicks in.  So the first thing I learned (actually more of a realization) is that it’s a good thing that we don’t keep “bad” food in the house.  The second thing I realized is how much I crave exercise.  Once I had him down for his nap I couldn’t change into my workout clothes fast enough.  I think everytime I lifted a weight I was able to push out a little bit of stress, worry and sadness.

Today things are pretty much back to normal.  My older son has an activity in the morning that I’m going to take him to and then we’re all going to my parents.  My baby brother (26) lives about 5 hours away and he’s back for the weekend.  He and my older son are best buddies so we’re going down there to hang out.  And the best bonus is that my mom is really good at taking care of our younger son so I’ll get a break.

The only concern will be the food, although my mom is in our contest so she should have some healthy food around.  I’ll also take some healthy snacks so that I’m not stranded.  My official weigh-in day is tomorrow so I don’t want to blow it.  I know I’m retaining water so anything extra I can do helps.

Yesterday I had a haircut after school so it totally threw my routine off track.  I got home and planned to work out but had absolutely no desire.  I knew I still had about an hour until my hubby and kids got home so I decided to go shoe shopping instead.  I hopped back in the van, headed up the street and the realized how stupid I was being.  I was already in the danger zone since the scale didn’t have a good result and I know I’m not going to be able to workout today or tomorrow.  So I drove around the block, headed home, and got in my 45 minutes on the treadmill.  I didn’t have the energy to go as fast as I normally do but I was only down about .3mph.  Plus, I was watching “X-Weighted” while I was on the treadmill and the guy kept mentioning that the reason he succeed was because he just kept plugging away even when he felt like quitting.  Were the tv gods speaking directly to me?

So I’m proud of myself.  And even though I still want to go shoe shopping, I’ll do it on a day when I plan it into my schedule instead of skipping a workout to make it happen.  In 2 weeks when I’m past my PMS and TOM I know I’m going to see good results.