Change for the better

I started this year on a mission to change. Most people who decide to work out and eat differently seem to make that choice at the beginning of the year...become New Years Resolution Warriors and then fizzle out. So it has been no surprise to people, I'm sure, for me to be more into "health" since January. I knew I wasn't going to be one of those resolution failures, though. You can tell when you make a half hearted decision or a permanent one. I've been trying, since having Sophie, to make changes and figure out how my body will lose weight. It has been a huge uphill battle. My metabolism doesn't want to cooperate with me...it seems to be as stubborn as I am. But 2011 has been vastly different. It helps so much having a husband who is so into fitness and health. I know I couldn't do it without him. It also helps to have constantly in my mind that my daughter will certainly learn by my example. It is already evident in the fact that she loves to exercise. She wouldn't have that excitement about it if she didn't see her mommy and daddy exercising on a daily basis. I want her, with all my heart, to grow up loving to be active and healthy. I appreciate so much that she loves healthy food because that is what we've taught her to eat. She gets treats but she never turns her nose up and fruits and veggies and I am thankful for that. When we started this year I decided to join my runner husband in his favorite form of exercise. Running has never come easy to me. In fact, I have often said that I would only run if someone was chasing me. :) But I decided to give it a try. Its beautiful outdoors here in Washington, and that is definitely a motivator...if I can enjoy the scenery while I feel like I'm dying, I'm more apt to stay with it. The first time I ran, it was awful. I felt like Ernie was the worst person in the world and that I would surely die. My legs killed me, my head killed me, I felt like I couldn't breath. It took me FOREVER to complete the run. I had to stop and walk often. The next day, I was so sore I couldn't work out that way again for several days. I alternated between that and doing Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. Same with that -- after a day doing the shred, my entire body would be so sore I'd have to take a few days off before I could do it again! It felt like an uphill battle, but I had Ernie encouraging me and Sophie was so excited to "exercise" right along with me, so that kept me going. Slowly (very slowly) the running got easier. Until one day, I made it all the way to the end of the trail without pausing to walk. That has been the biggest achievement this year for me. I pushed Sophie in the jogging stroller and I RAN. I still felt like I was dying...I doubt that will ever change. Running is work to me, it isn't fun. But the sense of accomplishment I felt was worth it all. I have cut about 6 minutes off my time. In the short distance I run, that is huge. I don't have to wait several days anymore between work outs. I can run for 1/2 an hour without stopping on my treadmill, and then do it again the very next day. My weight loss has slowed down for the moment...its easy to feel discouraged about that until I focus on how my body has changed. My fitness level from January 1st until now is completely 100% different. I can do the shred and then run, in the same day. I didn't think that would be possible. I have made such huge strides in just 2 months! I cannot wait to see how the rest of the year goes. It is slow going, for sure. I may not see huge physical changes until many, many months from now. But the way I feel is so completely different, that I can wait for the outside to catch up. I am excited to teach my daughter to grow up to be a strong, healthy woman. And that is worth it all.

for Amy

Today is my sissy's birthday. I've been thinking about her this week and thinking about what a good big sister she has always been. We're pretty far apart in age...she's the oldest, and I'm the youngest of 4 kids. My mom says she was always like my "second mom", but I don't think I ever really saw it that way. Unless you count her taking care of me and always being kind and loving, instead of how you'd think sisters may be from time to time. :) But I don't think that has to do with her being older than me. Its just because that is her character. I know God made her our older sister for a reason...she's a much better role model for me than I could have been for her! ;) I'm impatient, and have some attitude, I'm too quick to anger and not very even tempered. Amy has always been an example to me of how to be a Godly woman. If I think of what kind of person I want to be, I think of her. And definitely if I think of what kind of mother I want to be, I think of her. My sister has two of the sweetest, smartest, kindest girls I have ever met and I'm sure a huge part of that is because of who their mom is. I can only try every day to be the kind of mom she is and raise my daughter the way she has raised her daughters. My sister is kind, unselfish, giving, and full of grace. And I love her with all my heart and am so blessed to have her as my sister. Happy birthday sissy! love, Dofie

Jamaskicks!

So yesterday was a big day for Sophie! She finally got to start gymnastics. We have been talking to her about it for about a month, and I knew it'd be right up her alley, since she loves to jump, and somersault, and pretty much everything else that makes me think "oh man she's gonna break something!" Turns out there's a gymnastics place here in Yelm -- who knew?? Its super close to our house, so I checked it out. Its a BBB accredited business, which is always a plus with me, and they have tons of classes. Sophie started "Turbo Tumblers" yesterday. Judging on the abilities and size of the other kids in the class, she's the youngest. I figure this mostly because they are exactly Sophie's size, and I've never seen her with another 2 year old without thinking "geez she looks tall!". All day yesterday she talked about going to meet her teacher. FINALLY, it was 4:30 and time for class to start. As soon as we walked in a tiny little lady asked "are you Miss Sophie? I'm Coach Rachel!" and Sophie was hooked immediately. :) She wore her cute little black leggings and had red painted toesies and looked like such a cute little gymnast parading around. They have a balcony where moms and dads can sit and watch. Sophie noticed we were up there and so periodically throughout the class she'd say "HI!! Hi mom and dad!" And blow us a kiss. She had so much fun! They crab walked, bear walked, did the balance beam, did log rolls, front rolls, pulled themselves up on the bars, and most importantly, used the giant trampoline! Last night as I was tucking her in, she told me about 15 different things she wanted to tell her "coach" about. I don't know how I'm going to break it to her that class is only once a week...:) I'm really happy that it fits her so well. I knew it would, so it just makes me feel that much smarter. ;) She has strong little legs and I was pretty impressed she was able to pull her body weight up on the bars. I'm glad we found a place that seems so friendly and well organized. It makes me feel like she can stay there for many years, if she wants, and move up. So hooray! So proud to see our little girl growing up.

Night digs and deeper thoughts...

Hm lets see. Not too much new stuff going on. Last week Ernie and I had our first experience digging razors clams at night! We love going clam digging and always mark the clam tides on our calendar. :) But we have always made it out there in the early morning, or afternoon. This time though, the clam tide was at 7 pm, and of course in January here in the lovely Pacific Northwest, its pitch black by that time! We took lanterns and our usual clam digging guns and clothes, and headed to the ocean. We dropped Sophie off with Grandma on the way. Sophie loves the ocean, and clam digging...however, she also loves to run straight for the waves and that would be a complete disaster if we took her in the darkness. Its hard enough to keep track of her when its daylight out there. It was nice to go just the two of us! It was sort of like a date...a wet, freezing, windy, dark date. I'm used to it being really cold when we go to the ocean. I wear my boots, and I dress really warm. However, its a little different when its night, and raining, and the wind is blowing the rain at you. After about an hour, my jeans were so entirely soaked they were dripping. Luckily, I was so cold my legs were numb, so I couldn't really feel it. Our hair was soaking and water was dripping off our noses. But its all part of the experience, so I didn't really mind. What is *not* part of the experience, in my mind, though, is not getting any clams. It was so wet that the sand was just muck. We'd pull it out with our guns and the holes would immediately fill back up. After a few hours of this, my wool socks inside my boots were soaked. Every step I took was a slosh. I can deal with all that, and pretty happily, when we're pulling up clams and we have fried clams and clam chowder to look forward to. When we're getting skunked, though, everything seems colder, wetter...the hours are longer...Finally, after 7 1/2 days out on the beach (well, a few hours, but like I said, it seems longer), we made it back to the truck -- luckily, we had thought to leave our battery powered lantern on the dash, otherwise I have no idea how we would have found it. I changed right there in the front seat. I was so soaked, I didn't care. And what we had to show for it was....three clams. Usually, with just the two of us, we will come back with 30 clams. That's a limit for each of us. You can't even do anything with three! So what we really had, was a long trip to collect crab bait. :) We also stuck really well to our diet by taking our freezing selves to Burger King for dinner. Whoops! Oh well. I guess we can't be as lucky every time as we usually are. And we had never been out at night before. At least its another life experience, right? I was pretty nervous about the ocean with how dark it was. I'm pretty scared of water that I can't see through down to the bottom. I can deal quite well with the ocean when we're there during the day. I can watch the tide, and position myself so I don't feel like I'm going to get swept out to sea. At night though, I felt pretty lost. A few times I felt a little panicky. I could hear the waves roaring, but I couldn't see them. I could see everyone's lanterns (a pretty city out there on the beach) but I didn't know how close they were to the water. I didn't know if I was walking in a straight line, or if I was angled, walking myself closer and closer to doom with every step! For this reason, I kept getting farther from Ernie. I felt like he was too close to the surf for my liking. I kept walking up towards what I felt were the cars. And he kept calling me back. I was too scared to go back. I told him I couldn't see the ocean. I didn't want to be so close because I didn't know what was going to happen. He told me he was watching the tide for me. He said he'd protect me, but I needed to stay closer to him for him to be able to keep me the safest. It reminded me that we need to be like that with God. We can get scared of situations and try to handle it ourselves. But all we need to do is realize that God can see the situation better than us. We just need to draw closer to Him and he will keep us safe. :)

Hooray for my big girl!

Its a landmark week in the Dye house...we are pacifier free! If you know Sophie, you know what a huge milestone that is. Since she was a newborn, she had more pain than a normal baby. People told us "all babies cry", but this was different. It turned out she had reflux, and she had what we called her "pterodactyl cry". ;) And she did it for a good portion of every day and night. Medication helped, and what really helped comfort her (and save our sanity) was her pacifier. I honestly think that thing kept me out of the psych ward. It soothed her like nothing else could, and so for that I am perfectly fine that she was so attached to it. However, she's 2 and a half now, so I have been sick of that thing for several months! And she has held onto it quite stubbornly (which is completely unsurprising, given who her stubborn parents are). I found something that works...a sticker chart. Apparently something Sophie loves more than her pacifier is her Elmo stickers, so for every day she didn't have her pacifier, she got a sticker. And for every night she went to bed without it, she got another sticker. She was very excited to get to put each new sticker on the chart, and she has shown *everyone* who has come into our house her chart. :) So I am SO happy and relieved to say that after a week, I think the pacifier is gone for good! Hooray for our big girl. Now, if the stickers could just convince her to potty train...

Best Motivation ever!

So I did the shred today. As anyone who's done it...or any Jillian Michael's work out, for that matter...its hard. Today, it was pretty brutal. I'm sick, so I was hacking and wheezing the whole time. Really, I wanted to stop. However, when I put the DVD in, Sophie got so excited about "essercise"! At this point she was wearing Hello Kitty socks and a pull-up. She started swinging her arms around and hoping up and down, then informed me she needed to go "get some shoesies on". She came back in her black patent tap shoes, so at that point, she was ready to work out. She did the entire work out with me..and when I say that, I of course mean a 2 1/2 year old interpretation of it (which looks super cute, and way more fun). At one point, she stopped bouncing around and said "why you sweatin' mama?" I told her "because its so HARD!" she said "oh no mama, its not too hard, you can do it!" Best motivation ever!! What a cutie pie. She had such a concerned look on her face. I asked her if she could do it, and her response was "oh, sure! Of course I can!" Which was just great. I didn't have the urge to quit anymore! And I want her to keep having that mindset of of course I can! I want her to get that from me! If I keep at it, and don't quit, she's going to believe that much more in herself too. So, as I said, best motivation I could ever think of. Thanks baby girl! :)

Thanks to my kids

Well Christmas 2010 is over. Ernie argued that its still the Christmas season, and I suppose it is. There's still Christmas music playing on the radio, and our Christmas decorations are for sure still up (like I'd be on the ball enough to have taken them down by now). The kids have opened their presents and we've had our Christmas dinners. It was different this year because we had "Christmas day" a few days early, so we could celebrate with Gavin. It was exciting to see it through Sophie's 2 1/2 year old point of view. She understood a lot more this year. Last year she was of course excited, but this year she seemed to really get into it. Its so much more magical, the holiday season, when you have kids. We teach them the real meaning of Christmas, and that Jesus is the biggest gift to us, and that's why we give gifts, to celebrate that ultimate gift to us. But its also okay to get into all the magical wonderful fun stuff. Like decorating the Christmas tree, and wrapping presents, and watching Christmas movies. Playing games together as a family and having hot chocolate...its a much different kind of celebration when you have kids! A wonderful kind of different, in my opinion. And take New Years...I'm looking forward to it, but I bet our celebration seems kind of boring. We will have Gavin. We're going to go to the ocean to go clam digging, then coming back home and hanging out with the kids. I don't think of New Years Eve as some big party night anymore. And I feel better off because of it. I don't know how my life would be specifically different if we didn't have these kids. I do know that overall, it would be. It would be *completely* 100% different. Just like those jobs like nurses or doctors...no matter what you are doing, you are always a doctor. Well no matter what I am doing, where I am, who I am with, I am always a mom. Can't change it. Every single part of my life is affected by that title. The way we celebrate the holidays, the way we make sure we get to spend a little bit of time with each part of the family so the kids can see them, the way we arrange bedtimes around activities we want to do with the kids. What we watch, what we eat, where we go...the activities we plan definitely are different. And I am a much better person. The first person on my mind when I make a decision isn't myself. Its the kids. What will I make for dinner? Well I'll tell you its not always going to be what my first choice would be if I was the only one who was important. I have to take their little kid tastes into mind. What show do I want to watch? Well I think about the little observant eyes and tuned in ears that can pick up so much more than you would think. How am I going to decorate? Well maybe this homemade garland isn't my first choice, but the kids sure liked helping make it and they love seeing it displayed where everyone can see. And what is the meaning of Christmas? I don't want them seeing that the most important part is Santa Claus, and how many presents you can get for yourself and who gets the coolest toys. While I'm not against all of that, because the kids for sure got some cool stuff (Gavin got the Harry Potter Lego Castle...awesome. I mean, you know...for him...), we make conscious decisions to let them see that "getting" isn't what's most important to us for Christmas. Because we could tell them all we want, do what I say, not what I do. But I see in the way my little Sophie copies things I say, uses the same facial expressions I do, that my example has the most impact. So for this coming year, 2011, I am going to try to set the best example I can. And I'm thankful, so thankful, to these kids for making me want to be the best person I can be.