Christina, Author at A Mommy Story

Mar 9, 2010

Seven Years

March 9, 2010 By Christina

On this day, seven years ago, I promised to forever love and be faithful to the long-haired hippie I met at the renaissance faire on a hot summer day in 1998.

I’m proud of the family we’ve created in spite of the struggles we’ve faced along the way. We may not always share the same vision for the future, but we do share a determination to find our own path. Together.

Happy anniversary, Aaron. I hope seven years is only a small fraction of the many years we’ll be granted to grow and love together.

Filed Under: Aaron, me me me, memories

Mar 4, 2010

Picture Time

March 4, 2010 By Christina

I realized it’s been awhile since I posted a few good photos of Cordy and Mira. Let’s be honest, they’re the stars of this blog – I’m only the storyteller and supplier of Goldfish and gummy bears.

I can’t say we’re all looking our best at this time of the year. We’re cooped up, it’s cold outside, and the dry, cold weather is brutal on skin and hair. Still, they somehow manage to look cute.

Super Mira, guardian of the sippy cups:

See that serious face? You know she’s a tough superhero!

Cordy, hiding behind a mop of messy hair after I tried to straighten it (in order to trim it):

She’s only smiling because she doesn’t realize how badly mommy mangled her hair.

Noticeably absent from photos: me. Not after the sleeve of Girl Scout cookies I just inhaled this evening.

I’m peeking out from my winter cave. Rumor has it the warm weather may return this weekend. And hopefully it’ll bring my motivation and energy with it.

Filed Under: Cordy, Mira

Feb 25, 2010

Hibernating

February 25, 2010 By Christina

My blogging has been a little sparse of late. And it’s not for a lack of material, but for lack of concentrated focus, blurred by a dark cloud hanging over my head. It’s not the traditional depression I’ve faced in the past, but a sort of winter hibernation – an unwillingness to do little more than crack an eye open at the world going past as I pull inward, regroup, and hope for spring to get here soon.

Aaron’s job is going well, thank goodness. He likes the work, they appear to like him, and he has high hopes that come April he will be brought on as a permanent member of the team. The only downside is it has put more stress on our schedule, forcing us to shuffle the kids around between the two of us depending on the day, and making it impossible for us to spend a lot of quality time together as we maximize our distance to reduce our babysitting bill.

My own job has left me feeling some anxiety as of late. There are questions if the birth center at this small hospital will remain open beyond this year due to a budget so far in the red it may be impossible to dig out. Beyond that, I still don’t feel like I have a good handle on the job, and while I have many incredibly talented coworkers, I worry there isn’t enough experience between us should a true emergency walk in the door. I’m in a constant state of tired, too, leaving me wishing for the happier days of part-time work.

Cordy has been showing some improvement with the medication from her clinical research study. She’ll now sit at the table to color or work in a workbook for extended periods of time. And she’s reading and writing now! (Photos of her first works of art/writing to come as soon as I can get them scanned.)

Mira’s ability to be understood grows each week, although her weekly speech therapy bill is growing just as fast. I’m thankful to have health insurance, but it’s not a lot of help at first with a high deductible. Glad to know I’m paying $250 a month so I can continue to pay for the $100 therapy bills for Mira. Health care reform, anyone? But despite her speech issues, she’s just as impish as ever. She doesn’t need to be understood to still be capable of tormenting her big sister and pulling some of the greatest two-year-old bipolar moments I’ve ever seen.

I don’t think this down feeling will last forever. We’ll find our stride as a family again soon, and I’ll claw my way back to balance and back to happiness – something I remember I said would be my goal for 2010.

And despite my silence here, I’ve been quietly blogging updates on other side projects. I have new posts up at Ohio Moms Blog, and I started a new weight-loss blog. Remember Hot By BlogHer? Well, now it’s morphed into a more general, free-of-firm-deadlines, weight-loss blog, Losing My Hind. I’m also still doing a few reviews on Mommy’s Must Haves, where right now I have a fabulous giveaway for meat lovers.

So unlike bears in the wild, feel free to poke this sleeping mama-bear, and maybe she’ll force herself out of hibernation and back into the sunshine of the social world. Because it’s when I’m quiet and simply peeking at all of the world around me that I notice just how much I need my social network.

Filed Under: me me me

Feb 22, 2010

Gaining Ground

February 22, 2010 By Christina

I managed to erase the gain I had from Blissdom this past week with a 2 lb loss, putting me back at 187 lbs. While I’m glad for this loss, I’m a little upset that I wasted two weeks essentially going nowhere with my weight, and that my obsession with food got the better of me at Blissdom.

Food and I have a long, sordid history together. My mom was a single mom who worked all the time. While I had a babysitter in the very early years, I soon proved myself to be trustworthy and safe enough to not burn down the house after school until she got home, and so many nights I was alone in the house. This mean dinner often consisted of something easy to make – either a sandwich or something I could reheat in the microwave.

So most nights dinner would be a monstrous plate of reheated spaghetti, reheated mac ‘n cheese, or a ham sandwich with a pile of Doritos as a side. In the summertime, I nearly lived off of the freeze-n-eat popsicles in the heat. And let’s not even discuss how many trips I made to the golden arches. Vegetables and real fruit (as in, fruit that wasn’t already in a can in heavy syrup) rarely touched my lips.

I don’t blame my mom. She worked hard, and had a kid who was a real pain in the ass to deal with. Picky eater doesn’t even begin to describe my eating habits. But somewhere in college I became aware of a whole new world of foods, and suddenly my tastes changed and things I once thought gross were delicious.

Example: I always gagged at rice as a kid (maybe one too many viewing of The Lost Boys?), but now? I love rice. White rice, brown rice, jasmine rice, you name it – rice is yummy. Same is now true for broccoli. And seafood.

My hope is that I can reduce the amount of processed crap that my family eats, so that maybe my daughters will find good foods that they like instead of convenience foods with little redeeming value. Of course, this is no longer the 80’s – when Twinkies ruled the world – and we all care a little bit more about what’s in our food now. I’m sure my mom never would have bought a lot of that junk if she knew then what she knows now.

Here’s hoping to another loss this coming week, and that I can continue to make baby steps to get rid of the majority of junk in my diet.

Filed Under: weigh-in Tagged With: food memories

Feb 16, 2010

Snowed In

February 16, 2010 By Christina

8 inches of new snow on top of 8 inches of old snow:

Why yes, those chairs are half-buried in snow!

Plus drifting and blowing and probably another 2-3 inches tonight:

Buried under that snow is a double-layer brick ring around the closest tree.

Combined with stir-crazy children and another snow day tomorrow – the only day off for some time to come that should have been child-free – and I’m starting to feel a little like this: