Oh, Emma!

I have had a very challenging few days. Emma has been pushing the limits and basically trying to run roughshod all over anyone or anything in her path. She can be sweet to the point of bringing tears to my eyes and so difficult I actually have to send us to separate rooms to regroup. I spend half the day with my heart breaking for her because she is the least capable of us to cope with all the changes that Navy life brings, with Daddy being gone so much, with a new baby usurping her role and a big brother telling her what to do. The other half of the day (or 9/10 of it) I spend wishing Swiss boarding schools took almost 3 year olds. This stage is temporary and I don't want to overlook the sweet moments an miss out on her being a little girl, I just wish I had some magic answer to fix it. Trying to think of a solution and staying consistent is exhausting. Aiden, even at his most challenging, was always much quicker to comply and it's hard not to compare them, sometimes I beat my head against a wall trying to make something that worked for him work for her. I know I need to have a plan, stay calm and stop letting the kids know they have the ability to get me worked up. Gotta work on my poker face.

As a side note, Daisy is still VERY VERY nervous about the dishwasher. If it's open and she comes in the kitchen she will stop and back slowly out keeping her eye on it constantly. I would too with a dishwasher that looks like this:

Weigh in tomorrow, wish me luck!

The Road Less Traveled

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

And took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the road less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

~Robert Frost

I was first introduced to this poem sometime in college. It struck a cord because I had some self important feeling that I was blazing some trail and taking the road less traveled. Last night, as Daniel and I were watching Army Wives and crying during one of the saddest episodes of TV ever, it occurred to me that now I really am on the road less traveled. While there are thousands and thousands of us military spouses out there, we're still in a minority. We have chosen this life, with all its up and downs and with all the sacrifices it asks of us. However, choosing this life doesn't make it any easier. It is never easy to be woken at midnight to the possibility of a long separation; a deep sleep turned into a racing mind going over all that would need to be done, and all I could do was grip the back of my husbands shirt and pray he wouldn't leave. As spouses of military we are asked to do things like move alone (a lot), we pack up kids and belongings with startling regularity and make a new home somewhere else. We move back home with our parents or in-laws for months on end while our spouses are deployed. Worst of all sometimes we have to explain to a young child that we're so sad because a friend was killed, or worse.

There are many days when someone has asked me how I do it and my response is, "I don't know." It takes trust and love, trusting God that it will work out and that he gives me the strength to handle what is thrown at me. I have to trust my spouse over long separations and love him through it all. Then there is the group of women that are my sisters-in-arms, we stand together through it all. We encourage each other, celebrate a husbands return as ours prepares to leave, we talk endlessly about parenting, and we hold each other up when things feel impossible. Most importantly, we understand. We know what it is like to tuck kids into bed night after night praying for Daddy to come home safely and then stay up way later than we should because it's hard to go to bed alone, we don't have to explain to each other what it's like to lead this life we have chosen, to follow the road less traveled.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Goals, Weekly Overview and Weight Loss Challenge, OH MY!

I think the first week of reaching my weight loss goals was a success. I have kept a food journal, started following portion guidelines, cut out most sweets and alcohol and have been challenged by my Dad to a bet. First person to lose 10 pounds wins and the loser has to go visit the other person. We'll have our weekly weigh in and keep each other accountable as needed. My other motivation is a shopping spree if I accomplish my ultimate goal of 81 lbs by New Year's Day. I think I may start a savings account with a specified amount for each pound I lose to contribute to the new clothes/new me account. :)

Here are a few of my observations for the week. I have gone with a simple portion control guide that I used when I did the Zone Diet years ago. My meat serving is the size and thickness as the the palm of my hand, complex carb is the size of a closed fist and green veggie is the size of a loose fist. Because I'm still nursing a baby I have a lot more green veggies and I add some flax oil on top. Going back to some sort of portion guideline has helped me see how I was eating WAY WAY WAY more than I needed. I have one fruit and or protein smoothie a day and have whole foods for snacks like an apple or some almonds. I got myself moving on the treadmill too. I worked out 4 times and at my last work out I was able to do three intervals of slow jogging. I didn't think I'd be able to do that at all so tomorrow I'll start the "real" training for the 5 K I want to run on July 4th weekend. I can make little changes that will make a big difference. We went out for lunch today and instead of eating half an order of fried green tomatoes I had one slice. I had a shrimp salad croissant and potato salad and I brought half of it home. We even got ice cream but I got one scoop instead of 3.

A couple of goals:

Get rid of those next 10 lbs by April 15 weigh in.

Run 5 K on July 4th

Go on 1 mile "fun run" with Aiden

Lose 81 lbs by January 1, 2012 (I'll need to lose 8 lbs a month April-December to attain that number.)

Consistently follow the Couch Potato to 5 K plan.

I'm feeling really good about the start I'm off to. I FEEL good and I'm very encouraged by my big initial weight loss and by all of my friends sending me comments and emails to support me. Anyone want to make a guess at how long it's gonna take to shed those 10 lbs?

Weekly Weigh In 3/25/11

I know all of you have been waiting with baited breath for my first "official" weigh in. When I weighed on Monday (midday) I weighed 236 lbs. My typical weight first thing in the morning before that was 234. This morning I weighed first thing and that will be my standard weigh in time and GUESS WHAT???? I dropped NINE POUNDS! Down to 227, yahoo!!!!! What an encouraging start to this long journey. I've also been rolling around my ultimate goal for weight loss and I'd like to get back down to 155-160. Including what I lost this week that would be a grand total of 81 lbs. That's about as much as Aiden and Madaline's current weights combined. No wonder my knees crunch when I walk upstairs!

Here are some things to compare this weeks weight loss to:

3 whole chickens

1 bag of flour and a can of Crisco

Emma's birth-weight

2 bricks

36 cups of shredded cheese

Fun huh?!

Dog Poop In A Tree

About 2 months ago I was outside with the kids picking up after the dog. Being a typical 5 year old, Aiden took it upon himself to try and fling one of the tied up bags of poop over the fence. I didn't actually witness said flinging I just got the:

"Uh, Mom?"

"What Aiden."

"Well, ummm."

"Aiden, what is it???"

"Yeah, there's dog poop in the tree."

And lo and behold there, three fourths of the way up the oak tree in our back yard, was a bag of dog poop. After a brief moment of disbelief I started laughing, and I mean the cross your legs so you don't pee laugh. This was about a week after I had starting taking Zoloft and it was the first time I'd laughed that hard in ages. I'm sure all of you are wondering what happened then. Not being all that heroic, I simply decided to leave it there, I was fairly certain that the next strong wind would bring it down. It didn't. Several rain storms, windy days and approximately 2 months later my husband looked out the window and said:

"Why is there a bag in the tree?"

"It's the dog poop."

"You didn't get that out!!!!!!?????"

"Nope, it was way high up there."

"What about the BB gun?"

"Go ahead."

So he and Aiden headed out for the man job of shooting the dog poop down. After several hits it remained stubbornly clinging to the branch and Aiden came in to finish his supper, it's hard to believe a single bag of poop had withstood such harassment from the elements and now a small caliber weapon to remain aloft for so long. The following day, yesterday, Aiden was out in the yard for awhile with the dog playing sharpshooter or something along those lines. After about 2o minutes he came in and very calmly said:

"The dog poop fell out of the tree."

"It did??? What did you do with it."

"I flung it over the fence, and I got it WAY BACK THERE this time."

Super Awesome Garden Photos

Back On The Treadmill Again

There are a couple things that I'm really bad at. Never give me anything to mail, you will never see it again. I'm very very VERY bad at following through and finishing things, I'm super at starting things, but the finishing, not so much. Some of you may remember my weight loss blog from a couple of summers ago, I looked at it yesterday, then I looked in the mirror. Depressing. I have intended for one of my topics on here to be my seemingly never ending weight loss saga. My weight has been something I have struggled with since time began. There are times in my life where I have felt and looked great but I've had very little staying power. I lost about 27 lbs right off the bat when Madaline was born and then I hit a plateau and there I have stayed for 6 months. I think I have officially gone from it being "baby weight" to just being fat. Of course my inclination is to do two things: spend a lot of money on an X Box 360 Kinect and gorge on ice cream. What I brought myself to to instead was break out the workout clothes (GAG! They're hideous.) and weigh and measure myself. (Insert dramatic da dum dum music here.) First of all, props to my husband, the man still loves me even when he married this:

But has been living with this:

All I can think is that I look like either a pear or Mrs. Potato Head. I also don't know why I have my eyebrows raised so high in both pictures but that's not important right now. Here are the vital stats, numbers that until today I didn't even have the courage to find out for myself much less tell the world.

Weight: 236 lbs

Bust: 44 in

Waist: 45 in

Hip: 51.5 in

Arm: 14.25 in

Thigh: 29 in

Calf: 17 in

Now, what am I going to actually do about this. Well, I started by getting back on the treadmill today. I got one little bitty mile in but I did it and I threw in some mild resistance training too. I have a LONG way to go. I'm pretty disgusted with myself at the moment at what I have let myself become. Here is my plan, at least to get started, and I'll modify as necessary.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5186801_train-jog-let-alone-run.html

I will also be adding in weights or working with resistance bands at least twice a week and also interspersing with Wii Fit. I'm going to keep a food journal. Weigh in will be on Friday so I will blog my weight loss progress and an updates on Sunday for how the week went overall.

PLEASE feel free to encourage and keep me accountable, here we go again!!!

As an aside, how freaking cute are these kids?

Home Is Where The Navy Sends Us

If you are a Navy Wife then you have probably heard the phrase, "If the Navy wanted you to have a wife they would have issued you one in your sea bag." When I got married I walked out of that church and went under an arch of swords, I was then swatted on the ass by one of the biggest guys I had ever seen and he said, "Welcome to the Navy Mrs. Hancock!" Never a truer statement is made then when one marries a Navy man, we ourselves, join the Navy. Sometimes I begin to think that maybe I do have some voice in where the Navy sends us but when it comes down to it, I don't. We go where we are needed and we are expected to make the best of it.

I will be the first person to tell you that I don't have all the answers. It takes me MONTHS to settle into a place and make a house a home, as our children become more aware of their surroundings I am realizing I need to make this more of a priority. Only a 5 year old that has moved 4 times in 18 months will get excited about pictures being hung on the walls. My husband's job in the Navy requires him to be gone from home days or even months on end, my job requires me to be AT home days and months on end. This is what we Navy wives do. We become the rock that our children cling to and look to for steadiness when their lives feel like the rug is being shifted underneath them again. We are a soft place for our husbands to fall when the come home from working 20 hrs straight and need to vent about their day, I can always call another spouse to commiserate about purple marker on the wall and bank statements that never seem to quite balance out. Somehow we manage to keep the home fires burning even when we run out of energy and optimism to fuel it. I have learned to smile politely when people remind me for the thousandth time when I am on a walk with 3 kids and dog that I have my hands full.

Crazy, right? Maybe, but it is a life of service. A service to my family, my loved ones, my husband and my country. I stand unwaveringly behind my man so he can do his job. He can go out, and as far as my son is concerned, get the bad guys every day and know that there is nothing for him to worry about here at home. I will be on the pier to wave goodbye and I will be there to welcome him home. So who cares where the Navy sends us. Would it be nice if it were a tropical paradise away from the clouds of sand gnats with teeth like Ginsu Knives? Of course, but if it's not, that's okay. Home is where the Navy sends us and when we get there I'll be sure to hang pictures right away.

But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Ruth 1:16

Granddaddy

My parents were here yesterday to pick my youngest brother up from the airport. They arrived early in the morning so we could spend some time at the zoo before lunch. While all the kids love Nana and Granddaddy, Emma adores my father. When he walks in the door she comes up to me and very reverently says, "Granddaddy is HERE!" She then spends the next 15 minutes in his arms with her head on his shoulder and her eyes closed in bliss, occasionally she'll look up and him or stroke the side of his face. I am thankful beyond measure that my kids have four doting grandparents and that in this crazy Navy life that we're currently close enough for them to spend time with them on a regular basis. While I now understand that my grandparents loved me as best as they knew how, I was never particularly close to them, especially as we got older. I do have good memories with my dad's parents, Myrtle Beach was a great place for a kid to get to go on vacation each summer. What I missed was what I saw with my dad and daughter this weekend. Emma's love and adoration for her granddaddy literally brought tears to his eyes. In his arms nothing can get to her, not even a velociraptor...

Confiscated Toys and Belligerent Grills

Today started out with so much promise and ended up with the grill flat on its back in a mud puddle in the back yard. All us military spouses know that if something can go wrong while our spouses are gone, it will. I actually feel like while some challenges come up I usually dodge the big bullets. No hot water heaters have exploded, no ER visits, no major plumbing issues, etc... (as of yet, hope I haven't spoken to soon) This underway has really been throwing some punches though. This morning began with my heart melting as I watched Aiden and Emma water their flower seeds and ended up with my confiscating 3/4ths of their toys. What precipitated all this was Aiden tearing a page in a book because he "needed some paper" and what he wrote on that paper was "you are dum" and put it on his door when he was mad at me. While what he wrote didn't really upset me all that much his disrespect for his belongings and his sense of entitlement just really got under my skin. You would think me packing up toys would get their attention but they continued to bicker and fight nearly until bed time.

My heart feels so sad because I know they are not entirely at fault. I have indulged them and I'm not always the best at follow through. They know I can't hop up and discipline while I'm nursing the baby but all that aside what I am going for is simple obedience (not so simple though is it???). I just want them to listen to me when I give them an instruction, not ask me why and then do it when they darn well please. I guess it all goes back to free will, Adam and Eve had it all, they got to VISIT face to face with God and they made a choice to disobey. This is where my knees need to be hitting the floor for my kids, that they will know Jesus and that he will work on their hearts even at a young age. My challenge for now is to make simple rules and follow through with them.

After all of this I was working on sorting out the toys to chunk in the closet and I took a moment to take Daisy out. Imagine my surprise when our LARGE gas grill was on it's back in the yard having been blown off the patio. The wheels hadn't been locked and we some very strong winds (duh) come through. With the use of a shovel handle for leverage I managed to get it up on the concrete again and then I channeled all my frustration from the day and hoisted it back upright. I guess Aiden was serious when he said he'd heard a loud crashing sound after I'd put him in bed. I told him it was just the wind and to go back to sleep.

Even with everything this day threw at me I feel like I can get up tomorrow and face my day. I can keep going with a plan to teach my kids and mentor them in the way they should go. I don't feel miserable or hopeless, I recognize there are so many things that I am thankful for. While it wasn't fun to wrestle the grill back into its proper place in the rain, I am thankful that God watered my garden for me today.

From Fallow to Fruitful

This morning I began my adventure as a gardener. I'm not totally without experience, we had large home gardens growing up and I always enjoyed the beauty and bounty they provided. I wonder if Dad knows I'd sneak the ripe cherry tomatoes right off the vine and still warm from the sun... By 5 p.m. bedtime for the kids couldn't arrive quickly enough, Emma was whining and Aiden was "just soooooooooooooo tired." Now everything is quiet, cortisone has been applied to itchy little bodies, I'm clean, laundry is going and this cool chardonnay is lovely. As I looked back over the pictures from our day, I paused and smiled. Yes, I'm tired, but what a lovely day it was and what amazing children I have. I am also thankful beyond words for Ansley and Brian sharing a day off to lend a hand, my feeling of biting off far more than I can chew turned into one of success because of their help.

While I was cleaning out the area for our garden before reinforcements arrived, I had two thoughts that kept rattling around in my head when I wasn't smacking sand gnats. First, I was doing this for FUN. I wasn't hacking at the ground because it was the only way my family would eat, it was recreation. Yes, I will enjoy the vegetables and flowers that I provide for us but it's not a NECESSITY. How humbling a thought that was. I am looking forward to the opportunity to teach my children many things as we watch our garden sprout and flourish and the lesson of provision will certainly be a topic we address.

Secondly, and more importantly, as I was digging and scraping a place for our garden I wondered if God found my heart as dry, hard and unwilling to yield as the little dirt patch in our yard. When we

assembled our tidy beds and poured in the dark soft soil all I could think was that I wanted my heart to be more like that soil. It was deep and rich, it yielded easily to our hands. What a real life example of the parable of the sower, I want my heart to be fertile ground, ready to yield to God's touch. Ready to nourish and give fruit to the seeds He chooses to sow.

The Day The Dishwasher Attacked The Dog

This morning as I was feeding Madaline, Aiden and Emma were playing quietly upstairs. Or so I thought. A few minutes later I hear a door open and Emma's precious voice say, "Aiden cut my hair!" I could hear in her voice her very stance, tip-toed dancing around the hallway, arms flying, so proud of her new hair. Having done this to myself as a child I realized I had two courses of action, full blown freak out, or laugh. I decided to laugh. Aiden did a VERY thorough job, he even got the chunk right in the middle of her bangs. When I asked him where he got the idea to cut her hair, he responded, "In my head." We promptly loaded up and headed over to the Hair Cuttery in hopes of a cute little pixie cut. While it's BETTER it's not quite what I want so tomorrow we're really venture out of our box to a kids place on the south side of Jax.

Now, I know all of you are dying to know why this is titled about the dog and not Emma's haircut. As a result of being sick for few days the kitchen had reached epic proportions of ickiness. While the kids were eating, Daisy took up her usual licking of the dishes as I put them in the dishwasher. This is NOT something I encourage but I've gotten tired of yelling at her to stop. When Daisy was halfway through licking off the back of a plate, the dishwasher, pissed off by the constant harassment from a Labrador, struck. It violently lashed out and hooked the bottom rack through the ring on Daisy's collar. Then it proceeded to toss plates and bowls in her general direction all the while making a horrible clanking and rattling sound. Daisy, scared out of her ever loving mind attempted to shake the offensive appliance loose but was utterly unable to get traction on the tile. After several heart stopping seconds the

dishwasher released her from it's death grip and I did the only reasonable thing I could think of. I yelled at the top of my lungs, "GET OUT YOU STUPID DOG!!!!" Daisy hightailed it out, tail tucked. Spurred into action by all the commotion Aiden rocketed himself out of his chair to see what, precisely, was going on. Daisy scurried past him and he came over to inspect the scene of the mauling. Satisfied that things were put back in order, he looks at me and says, very politely, "Mom, stupid is not a nice word. We just don't say that, it's inappropriate." My heart racing, I bit my tongue against another retort. I apologized and got back to the dishes. Curious as to where Daisy had gone I looked over the partition into the living room. I finally spotted her, she was balled up on the couch with just her eyes showing over the arm staring in the kitchen. When when saw me looking at her, her eyes slowly sank below the arm of the couch and she disappeared from view. She's yet to go back near the kitchen, she just lies and stares, waiting for the dishwasher to climb out from under the counter and eat her. Whole. Is it really twisted that I wish I could hook her back to the rack so I could get it on video?