Monday, March 1, 2010

I Don’t Negotiate with Terrorists

In the last couple of weeks, I have frequently joked that I need a T-shirt for my business, with the name of my child care on the front and the above mentioned mantra on the back.  You wouldn’t think that people under 36 inches high could terrorize a full-grown woman, but the truth is, they possess that capability everyday, and I know it.  I’m finding that the key is, not to let on.     
       In the evenings, as I reflect on my days, the situations I’ve passed through with all my little guys and gals during the day often make me laugh—even if I didn’t feel that way while the moments were passing me by.  Most of the time, I manage to juggle everyone and everything fairly well, but there are always those couple of moments during the day where everyone wants my attention NOW, and everyone cries because no one is getting what he or she wants.
       For example, last Thursday at 4:00, I knew it was time to pack up everyone’s diaper bags.  Child 1 wanted his juice refilled; Child 2 wanted her dinner early; Child 3 was due for a bottle; Child 4 wanted her bottle early; Child 5 wanted a new color marker; and Child 6 just wanted to be carried everywhere I went.

          I told Child 1 he would have to wait until the bags were packed; I told Child 2 it was almost dinner time; I told Child 3 his bottle was in the warmer; I told Child 4 her bottle WOULD be in the warmer next; I told child 5 to use the same color for a few more minutes; and I told Child 6 that I’d been carrying him for the last 15 minutes, and that he would just have to play with toys for a while.
           I’m really not entirely sure that the decibel level achieved by the six of them in their cumulative disappointments was legal within City Limits.  What did I do?  I let them all fuss for approximately 10 minutes, and then I refilled the juice, dolled out goldfish, switched the pink marker for a red one, and laid one baby across each knee while making lion noises at the child suffering separation anxiety and assuaging the children suffering from certain starvation.

           You know what?  There have been terrorists in my life a lot longer than there have been children.  For more than a decade, food has been my terrorist.  All this food that I loved, and that I thought was helping me—some of it was even good for me, in moderation—really, it was controlling me and holding me back.  It was making quite a racket too.  “Eat me!  You know you want a little more! You deserve an extra scoop of that.  It won’t even be worth it without the butter.” And on and on.
            Well, I don’t negotiate with terrorists.  I’m done being controlled by food.  I’m going to be nourished by it, and I’m going to enjoy it as God intended, but I am NOT going to be controlled by it.  Before, I felt deprived if I couldn’t eat what I wanted when I wanted, but I’m LOVING having all this extra room in my clothes, and I don’t want to be deprived of that!
           On Sunday, I went to my tenth WW meeting, and I’d lost another 1.6 pounds for a total of 17.2 pounds lost total.  Only 2.8 pounds to go to reach my goal of 10 percent (20 pounds) lost.  The revolution isn’t just in my waist line, it’s in my mind as well.  I don’t want to have to do this again; I want this to be the rest of my life.
          So, this week is week 12 of the rest of my life.  As it is a “sixth” week, I am taking the week to Rest and Re-evaluate where I am in my journey.  Ironically, it’s the perfect week to rest, as I seem to have come down with another cold/allergy ailment. 


           In the meantime, to keep this blog going, I am hoping to revisit the past, and by doing so, I hope to keep the past from revisiting me.  For tonight, all I’m going to say is that it all started with a plate of spaghetti.  Yeah.  Spaghetti.  Little (o.k. BIG) plate of noodles and sauce.  And so it began.



1 comment:

  1. You are doing awesome! Did you buy WW cookbooks? I've got a few and I'll see if I'm ready to pass them on :-)

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