Snow Day

I was cranky from the get go today because they were calling for snow and we got snow.  Probably six inches I am guessing and Jeff is out of town.  God has blessed me with some lovely neighbors and they blew my driveway out.  What tremendous kindness!  I don't mind the snow, on a day when we don't have a million things to do that require car trips.  I did not grow up driving on the snow so it makes me a little nervous.  It was a mess!  Even my neighbor who has lived here all her life said she had white knuckles the whole way home. 

I am not writing about what I ate today because that was pretty irrelevant.  What is relevant is that I feel like I had a breakthrough today.  It was a pretty stressful mom day.  (Warning: this may sound awfully whiny to a working mom or even to someone with no kids, but we all have stress in our lives and it just takes different forms for different lifestyles.)  I have been trying hard to do yoga this week while on this cleanse and I really wanted to make it to 9:00 yoga at the gym.  That means leaving at 8:30 which is tough for us to do, without snow.  We made it - Hooray!  Then we came home for 40 minutes and left again to pick up Emelia's friend from preschool so we could carpool for gymnastics.  Home for another 45 minutes and then off to gymnastics.  I got 22 minutes to relax while Sam napped and Emelia was at gymnastics.  Then we had a doctor's appointment and that is when my day crashed and burned. 

I am tremendously grateful because my child is healthy and passed all the well check guidelines for her age with flying colors!  Then it came time for shots.  As soon as Emelia knew she had a doctor's appointment she began having anxiety about getting shots.  I wasn't sure if she was going to have any so we prayed that God would keep her calm and she seemed to be ok.  Then when we got to the doctor she did great until it was time to get the shots and then she FREAKED OUT.  I had to physically restrain her while she screamed and cried and turned bright red.  It is incredibly hard to watch your child experience that kind of terror.  It was everything I could do to keep from crying with her.   The whole thing probably only lasted for two minutes but it felt like my heart was being ripped out.   She calmed down really quickly and we stopped at Target for a toy.  Yep, I felt that guilty.

While we were at Target I was just a wreck, stressed and hungry and I was so close to just throwing in the towel.  I just wanted a Turkey sandwich and some yogurt or a latte or maybe even a candy bar, something, anything, to make me feel better.  Then I thought, it is over.  Eating a whatever will not undo it.  There is no longer an immediate stress stimuli so there is not need to eat.  Even if there was a stressor, eating will not make it better.   

That's it!  I actually thought about it instead of just doing it.  I not only thought about not eating, I have been doing that for five days now, I actually thought about eating, thought about why I was eating and then thought through WHY I should not eat.  I was amazing really.  Now, I confess that I still wanted a latte and a candy bar but at least I knew why I wanted them and why I did not need them.  Maybe, just maybe, this time next week when the poop hits the fan I won't want a candy bar.