This Happened Today

Oh where to begin? What a day this has been.


Maybe I'll just start at the beginning.

Aria has lazy or wandering eyes, yes, poor baby inherited that gene from yours truly. I had noticed it when she was younger, but finally said something at her 18 month appointment. We scheduled an appointment at Children's Hospital two months out. I actually don't know why it was that far out, I just assumed that it was just difficult to get us in.

With great anticipation, the appointment was today. They said to be prepared to be there for three hours. They said to bring books and snacks and toys. To be prepared.

So, I prepared. I woke up at 5:30, I had snacks packed, diaper bag packed, I read the Word, showered, put my makeup on, Ben and I had an awesome time in prayer…

Then my kids woke up.

They slept until 7:30 and it was amazing.

I went and got Aria. She had pooped and it was pretty messy. Like, on the sheets, up her back kind of messy. Awesome. I carried her to her changing table and she was crying. She would NOT lay down to let me change her. She just stood there and cried. She was upset. I was trying to help. So for what seemed like forever but probably was just a few minutes we struggled and I eventually forced her to let me clean her up. "Aria, I understand that you are upset about all of this, but I am only trying to help. I know that the poop is messy and the wipes are cold and you don't like to have your clothes taken off, but this is just what we have to do right now."

Let me just also preface that last night my parents amazingly, lovingly, wonderfully took care of our kids so that we could go to a banquet. Levi and my dad made this beautiful "garage" out of toy blocks. Really, it was kind of a castle built around a toy car. It was also in the kitchen, on the floor, in the middle of life. They made Levi promise that if Aria knocked it over, he wouldn't cry. He promised. And he is a liar (we're born liars right?!) Never trust a three year old.

We go out and have breakfast. We swoon over Levi's beautiful garage. The kids had cereal and I had my eggs on a salad.  I tried to get them to eat some eggs, usually Aria loves it, but today she threw them on the floor. Breathe. Calm yourself.

I wiped her off and put her down. Almost immediately she went to Levi's beautiful garage and knocked it over.

Emotional armageddon ensued.

Levi was on the floor weeping. Screaming "No!!! We have to rebuild it!" You would think that he was pleading for his life. I'm looking at the clock and thinking, we need to leave in thirty minutes, he's not dressed, shoes are not on, I still need to pack up a few toys and books, I haven't finished my breakfast, the kitchen is a crazy mess… I told him no, we are not rebuilding the garage. Of course this caused a fit of rage. Honestly, I just didn't want to deal with it. I stood there at the kitchen island, eating my salad and watched him wallow on the floor in anguish. I was wondering if I would be able to get him under control before we needed to leave. Add that to the list of things to do: Get Levi in his right mind. It might have been quicker if we had just rebuilt the garage.

So we disciplined. I was not holy and sanctified and perfect in it. It is very difficult to control this highly emotional little boy. Somehow, we got it under control. I got the toys and books, clothed and shoed the children and we headed out the door, sippies in hand.

Right now we are painting the door that goes from our kitchen to the garage, so instead of a door, we just have a blanket hanging to sort of keep the heat in, but otherwise, it's open. So we are not using our garage right now. We went out our rarely used front door and I just locked it behind me. I got me and the kids into the van and realized I had left the keys in the house. Including our house key. So I hit the garage door opener. It opened about two feet and then stopped. I hit it again and it didn't budge. I had no choice, at thirty weeks pregnant I crawled on my hands and knees under the garage door, went in and got the keys off the counter. I tried the garage door from the inside and it still didn't work. I used the front door to get out of course. I called Ben and told him that the garage door didn't close and that I was leaving because I needed to be at the Dr's appointment at Children's Hospital.

On the way there we stopped to pick up Aria's shot record. Let me just say here that they never once asked for it at Children's. Am I a little annoyed? Yes.

At the hospital I had to ask about three different people for directions to the Opthamology Department. It is somewhere in the back recesses of the hospital. Thankfully, I had planned on this sort of thing happening and we got there with plenty of time.

The appointment was okay. I had heard to allot three hours for it, so I was prepared for a long time. However, I was hoping that Levi would be in a better mood, he just wasn't his chipper self. I'm not sure that it helped to have televisions on in almost every waiting room, with shows that I wasn't even comfortable with, I hadn't seen them before but they looked pretty dumb. Whatever.  I did have to hold Aria for the dilation and eye drops, we waited all that time for the Dr to tell us that she had no damage and that he couldn't tell she had a lazy eye. I guess that's a good thing. So really, I spent all that time and effort to find out that she's just fine. I really really really need to be content with that. Lord, I'm sorry I have such a bad attitude.

All the way home I just wanted to eat. Now, we are moving from my children's sin to my sin. Oh my, what a stronghold it can have. I scarfed down my whole bag of nuts and still wanted more.

When we got home, I had made a delicious pumpkin syrup the night before and I was snacking on that… I know I originally said that I would keep on this sugar fast for three weeks, well, I was going to gradually introduce sugar this week. Let's just say that gradually got punched in the stomach for my desire for … comfort. I think now, looking back, I just wanted something that would make me feel better. I wanted to forbidden fruit of sugar and starch and I was tired of being deprived.

That afternoon while the kids napped I decided to make myself a big ole bowl of ice cream. I did not care at that point. I had fallen from my place of perfection and I was going to fall hard. I just didn't care.

I hate the free fall. I hate the feeling of going "off the diet" and just wanting to eat an entire kitchen's worth of food and that still not being enough.

Lord, I need You. I need comfort and strength from You. Help me not to look to food for those things. Help me not to look to my husband or children or Facebook or blogging or instagram or all these things that my heart wants to love. Thank You that You are the God of all comfort. Thank You for creating good food, help me to delight in it and worship you for it. I am tired of looking to food for comfort, it's silly and it just doesn't work. Help me to look to You.

Thank You for today. Thank You that it is over.

A Bodily Cleansing :) part 10

Hm, how do I start this post? I sit and wonder how to confess what I have done. ...

I sort of feel like there is all this pressure on me (since I'm blogging about this) to be perfect and amazing and just have the most amazing results. Now that I step back I bit I realize that is a false perception.

I haven't been able to walk the past two days because of the weather. I feel like that's okay though, I don't want to be too hard on myself. Something has been gnawing in the back of my mind though, "I'm not doing that great. I'm not perfect." Last week I was perfect. This week I seem to be anything but perfect.

This afternoon I found myself eating cashews. Cashews? Really? They were in the pantry and then I got them out. Later on I picked them up and started eating them. "What in the world am I doing?" I thought. It kind of shook me.

Okay, if you have ever been on a hardcore diet or even a fast or something, it's like you begin to feel yourself free falling. You were in the sky and doing amazingly and feeling amazing and doing everything extra perfectly and eating exactly the amount of calories, drinking exactly the same water... and then somebody says something and it starts to unearth you. Then you feel strange and it makes you question things. Then you think, I'll just have this one thing and that's when you begin your free fall. That's just the beginning. Then there is no stopping because if you ate that one little thing that was kind of borderline then it's really justifiable to eat this other thing too, and, well I broke that rule so I might as well break this big one over here.

It was kind of a crazy day. I had a meeting, taught a piano lesson, visited a friend who had a baby, had worship team practice, Levi's sleeping was totally weird and his nap wasn't long enough. (This makes him have a constant whine, it's pretty much like fingernails on a chalkboard and you try to do anything you can to make it stop.) This afternoon I would go over and give him this little food (he gets himself pretty messy so you have to be careful what you give him and how you give it to him). Then I would go over here and do this thing on the computer, check this text message. Whoops, somebody is calling, should I start dinner? I really really want to go see my friend who just had her precious baby (it was amazing to hold her!!)

I was totally scattered. I didn't get dinner in the oven. Ben came home and nothing was done I was just standing in the kitchen blankly staring at him saying, "I didn't have time to fix the chicken, we have to go to worship team practice, I'm sorry you're hungry." I failed as a wife. And on top of that, I failed on my anniversary. I started to juice something and it just felt wrong. I didn't want the stupid juice. Ben was tired from being in and out of meetings all day and Levi was a mess. I pulled out the whole grain bread I got a Whole Foods and put some honey mustard and then the leftover calzone fillings from yesterday, stuck it in the toaster. Ben didn't want it. (It really frustrates me when Ben doesn't want food that I just "throw" together. If I take time to fix something and it's good, he LOVES it. Sometimes I don't care if he loves it or not, just eat it, it's food. :) So I ate it. I was hungry and I wanted to justify what I had done.

In explanation for this seemingly spur of the moment decision, I was thinking that I needed to stop the cleanse soon. I needed to start integrating things back into my life. I had been thinking all day about how I would do this. I think I imagined that it would be this perfect moment from heaven and the food I integrated back into my diet would come down on a plate with wings and a bright light that said, "well done, my good and faithful servant."

The weird part is that I began to feel that pull. When we came home from worship team practice (all three of us go) I saw the leftovers on the counter and it had been so good (everything is "so good" when you are not eating anything:)) and so I finished it. Honestly, it wasn't even a full meal's worth. But I began to feel myself magnetically pulled toward the pantry and the refrigerator. I thought, I need to juice something, hm, don't those strawberries look nice, oh yeah, that dried fruit in the pantry is good, I should have some oatmeal too... Thankfully, Ben was in the kitchen with me. He was cleaning and I was wanting to start grazing.

I started to talk out loud and say "I feel like I have broken this huge rule. I have done something that is irreversible." He asked me what in the world I was talking about. "You know," I said, "this cleanse thing, by eating that food I broke a rule and now I need to go plummeting down into the depths."
"Jody, I have never broken a rule of a diet, do you know why?"
"Because you have never been on a diet?"
"Exactly."
Shut up Ben, I don't need this right now. That's what I wanted to say. But the cool thing about Ben is he doesn't say things pridefully, he just says them logically.
"Yeah, but didn't you ever struggle with your eating when you went from swimming several hours a day to not swimming at all?"
"I think I just always ate what I wanted to eat" He said. "When I was swimming I could eat two big macs and felt great, but now if I ate two big macs it would make me want to throw up."
"Yeah, but when you are those big macs you had a good feeling right? Didn't you ever think when you were sad, if only I could have two big macs like that one time, then I would feel better."
He looked at me for a minute. Then he said, "I think as a man I compartmentalize those things. Food has its own little compartment. When I'm in that compartment I enjoy the food, I love the food, but I don't associate it with other good feelings. I think that women, who are all connected might tend to associate the feelings food gave them and try to mimic them in other situations. Maybe that's why women struggle with emotional eating more than men would."

Such wisdom there in our kitchen. I associate guilt with food, good feelings with food, boredom with food...

I think food needs to be put back in its proper place.

Lord, help me. My heart is prone towards selfishness, please help me to trust in You. Help me not to be prideful, but to walk humbly with You. I don't want to diet just for the sake of dieting. I want to learn from You the proper place for food.