I Gained Weight From Not Eating Enough!

Five and a half years ago I got a virus that killed my appetite and caused severe stomach issues. It got so bad that I could only eat if I was at home because I needed easy access to the bathroom at a moments notice. I began only eating at night. In the process I lost 40 pounds. The stomach issues lasted 8 months straight. When they finally went away I still had no appetite so I still only ate a night. I was slowly killing my metabolism.My body was in starvation mode.

 Over the next 5 years I slowly gained back all the weight. I am now heavier than I have ever been (besides during pregnancy). I am pissed about this. I did not ask to get sick. I did not ask to lose my appetite. I did not ask to kill my metabolism. But that is exactly what happened. I am now 15 pounds overweight. I have never in nearly 40 years been overweight.

I now find myself in a position where I need to force myself to eat to get my metabolism working again and to hopefully lose 25 pounds. I despise eating. All this time I have been doing it just to stay alive, and it turns out, I was only making things worse. It is very depressing to be in this position.

I have found out there are certain Food Combinations that help you lose weight, and that you need to eat right away when you get up and every 3 hours throughout the day. I do not want to do it, but if I don't I am only going to get fatter. I never imagined eating less would cause me to gain weight, but that is exactly what happened. This is going to be a long uphill battle and I fear that after, and if, I lose the weight it will only come back unless I never eat anything yummy ever again for the rest of my life. At the moment I hate myself and I am in shock, and I really do not want to face something so life altering. On a positive note, the first five days I was eating frequently, I lost 3 pounds. REALLY??? So weird! I hope that trend continues!

Have you ever faced an unexpected weight gain? What did you do?

The Misunderstood Child

I have a misunderstood child. Perhaps you also have one. My hope is that others can begin to see him the way I do, to notice his strengths instead of his weaknesses. I am not sure how to help others to see them, except to explain what I see.

You see distraction... I see attention to surroundings.
You see stubbornness... I see persistence.
You see daydreaming... I see imagination.
You see disobedience... I see creativity.
You see fidgeting... I see abundant energy.
You see impulsivity... I see adventurousness.
You see a chatterbox... I see a social child.
You see rambunctiousness... I see playfulness.
You see procrastination... I see planning.
You see emotional... I see caring.

There are many irritating things you see that are true, but they cause you to miss a lot of good qualities. There are many other traits you may never see because they aren't outwardly very noticeable. You can see them though, if you look hard enough.

He shows compassion to others.
He is very affectionate.
He is helpful.
He includes everyone.
He is super organized.
He is exceptionally observant.
He remembers everything.
He is easily entertained, and never complains of boredom.
He is very optimistic.
He overcomes obstacles easily and just accepts things the way they are.

We all need to look harder at the misunderstood child, and work to see all the amazing traits they possess. Let's all work toward understanding together. Who's with me?

Do you have a misunderstood child?

Lice Prevention 101

On the 4th day of school I got the dreaded lice note sent home with one of my kids.

Dear Parents, there is a case of lice in your child's classroom. Blah, blah, blah, a two page letter with instructions and information. There are never details in these letters except that there is lice. It is the same form letter the school sends every time there is lice going around.

Did I panic? Did my head instantly itch? Did I furiously check my child?

YES

Have you heard of Super Lice? That is enough reason to panic.

Instead of waiting until you need to deal with treatment of hard to get rid of parasites living on your child's head and all the cleaning that is involved why not just prevent lice to begin with?

The first step is to make sure your children know the rules:

• No head to head contact with other children
• No sharing combs, brushes, coats, hats, and sweatshirts
• No lying on the floor/carpet in classrooms
• At sleepovers bring your own bedding and leave a fair amount of space between yourself and friends bedding. NO SLEEPING TOGETHER on the same bed/pillow

Then there are things you can do to help prevent your child from getting lice:

• Before school spray children's hair with Lice Prevention Spray (recipe to follow) and put girls hair in a tight ponytail and spray with a lot of hairspray.
• Whenever your child bathes wash your child's hair with shampoo that has added Melaleuca Oil (also known as tea tree oil). Add 5 drops to single use of shampoo, or make your own Lice Prevention Shampoo (recipe to follow)

When making the following recipes, be sure to use 100% Pure Essential Oils and that they are steam distilled or cold pressed for the extraction process. Also make sure they come from a botanical plant source and don't contain synthetics or impurities. I get mine from Melaleuca Inc, 

There are many other companies that provide good quality essential oils such as Young Living and DoTerra. I get the Andiroba Oil from Amazon. Any coconut oil may be used.

By using these prevention methods, I have avoided 5 children from getting lice for the past 13 years, and in turn avoided all the work involved in getting rid of those pesky parasites.

 Good luck preventing these critters from living on your child's head!

Cute Kidisms-All in One Post

I hope you enjoyed these Cute Kidisms!

Don't forget to check out the Misquoted Song Lyrics Edition

Stairwell Surprise

A few years ago my husband and I finally went on our first kid-free overnight. This was no small feat considering I had five kids 2-8. My husband’s employer sent us to the Family Life’s Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway. My in-laws came to watch the kids Friday, and we took off.

We had planned to eat on the way to our hotel but we got stuck in traffic and ended up going straight to the hotel and headed to the welcome session. I was starving to death by the time it ended at 10 so we went out to eat.

Back at the hotel, I was lying peacefully in bed when I spotted something between our pillows. It was a fucking gnarly long toenail clipping, meaning the sheets were never changed! I freaked out and told my husband, who was nearly sleeping, that we had to get the sheets changed or request another room, but he told me it was too late, to go to sleep. Frustrated at his non-concern, I reluctantly agreed. I assumed that was the grossest thing I would encounter that weekend. Boy was I wrong, so very very wrong.

The next night was date night. I was looking forward to getting all gussied up and going out! After the last session there were throngs of people gathered at the elevators on the 3rd floor. I was excited and impatient so I came up with the brilliant idea to take the stairs. I begged my husband to take the stairs with me. He refused. I was too energetic to just wait around. I told him I would race him to the top and meet at the room. It was only 10 flights up. How bad could it be? I was yet to find out just how bad it actually was.

I charged up the first two flights of stairs, determined to beat him. By this time my calves were burning! How out of shape was I? I gave myself a pep-talk. I could do this! I got to the top of flight seven, completely out of breath. That is when my nostrils detected an awful stench. I had six flights to go. I could do this! I didn’t want to go down and sheepishly face my still waiting husband.

I kept booking it up those stairs, the fumes getting stronger with every step! What is that godawful smell? It became more noxious the higher I went, by flight nine my eyes were watering! What the ever loving hell is that smell? By now I was more curious to find the culprit than I was determined to make it to the room. I continued, the entire time looking around for the cause of the nastiest thing I had ever smelled. It was too late to give up now!

Flight 11 is where I came upon it, the image that left me forever changed! It was a paper coffee cup full of human poop! I SHIT you not! It was a literal HOLY CRAP moment! I gasped, gagged and ran. I thought getting away would lessen the smell. WRONG! The higher I went the worse it got, not subsiding as I assumed it would. I was running as if for my very life. I charged out of the stairwell door onto our floor. I made it! VICTORY was mine, but at what cost? The odor persisted, I swear my body absorbed the smell of someone else’s shit!

I got to the room before my husband, and sat, dazed, paralyzed at what had just occurred. I was too stunned to even gloat that I beat him! The story really amused him! At least someone benefited from my assault.  

I got beautiful, we went out, but I never really got what happened out of my mind the entire night!

A few questions linger in my mind about the incident to this day.

• Did the coffee just hit the perpetrator suddenly at which point he guzzled the coffee so that he had a receptacle to shit into?
• Did he wonder if it would be better to just poop his pants?
• How does this idea of shitting into a coffee cup and leaving it in the stairwell even occur to an individual?
• Did he think maybe it would have been nice to properly dispose of this steaming cup-o-poop?
• What would he have done if someone had come upon him mid-poop?

So many questions, so few answers. The biggest being WHY ME?

Have you ever come upon something disgusting you were not expecting?

Cute Kidisms-Misquoted Song Lyrics Edition

To wrap up the Cute Kidisms Series, this edition is misquoted song lyrics! I hope you enjoy it!

Chips, Dip, Cramps, and Discord

A few weeks ago I was having a terrible crampy pain on one side of my abdomen. I felt like death. I thought I would pass out it was so bad. I was tempted to drive myself to the ER.

After supper it seemed like a good idea to curl up in a fetal position on the couch and put on a show everyone liked. Big Brother was it. I was all curled up as comfortable as I was going to be under the circumstances. Never mind the fact that my kids were crowding me. I attempted to ignore them and focus on the show. I should have known it was not going to work out.

My daughter went to get the chips and dip. I didn't really care that she did not ask or that they were undoubtedly going to make an extreme mess. I was in too much pain to care.

The 10 year old was getting annoyed that the kids were reaching into the bag so she yelled at the 7 year old. The 7 year old started crying. Then the 10 year old yelled at her for crying because she couldn't hear the show and turned it up to 100 decibels. The 9 year old started eating the chips cookie monster style, crumbs flying everywhere! What kind of 9 year old does that? The other 7 year old dripped dip on the remote and it was stuck in the buttons! Hello? Is this necessary? Chaos ensued.

At this point I screamed "Where is your father!?" I glanced down the hall from my cozy spot. I saw the bathroom light on and the door closed. I listened for water running. OH SHIT! He is in the shower! Great timing dad! I was at the end of my rope, near tears. The pain was getting worse by the minute. I felt like my insides might just explode. How was all this taking place in the few minutes it takes my husband to shower? Couldn't they have waited until he was done to lose it?

I should have known better than to think I could just zone out on TV and let the kids do whatever. Based on previous experience, I had not watched one episode of Big Brother in it's entirety without some stupid shit happening. Why should this time be any different?

I licked the dip off the remote, then had a kid bring me a paper towel to clean out the cracks. I should have put a halt to the chips and dip immediately, but stupidly gave the kids the benefit of the doubt.

I am positive I did not learn my lesson and that this kind of thing will happen again. I will probably be just as surprised when the next stupid thing happens because I am a slow learner! Chips and dip anyone? How about a side of cramps and discord? Pull up a seat!

What kind of chaos happens at your house when you don't feel the best?

Cute Kidisms 11

Yo - number 11 has arrived! Keep em' comin'! Funny stuff!

If you want to see your cute kidisms here, share them with me!