Deep enough

Some days, I wonder if I love my children enough. I have had this recurring horrific thought of, "Would I really miss them if they were gone?"

I know. It's awful. I've thought for a long time that it made me not fit to be a mother. Like I would never be good enough to deserve my children.

Then we went to Disneyworld.

There was such incredible joy every time the boys got to meet a character. Christopher learned to be a Jedi and fought off Darth Vader. Jack Sparrow taught the boys how to be a pirate. We rode roller coasters and Dumbo and It's a Small World and Toy Story Mania. We ate with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto, Goofy, Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Chip, and Dale.

Everyday was as magical as they claim it will be.

None of that was what made me realize that I do, in fact, love my children more deeply than I thought possible. It wasn't the fictional Disney magic that confirmed for me that I would be wrecked without my kids.

It was a rain shower on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom. It was a sea of ponchos in which my four year old got lost. It was the fifteen minutes I spent battling the logic in my head of, "This is DISNEY. They will find him. They are used to this," against, "OH MY GOD. WHERE IS MY SON?"

One second he was with us, and the next he wasn't. It was raining, so everyone in the park seemed to be wearing identical ponchos. Between the rain and the ponchos, it was impossible to see him in the crowd by the time we realized he was gone. We look for maybe 90 seconds, and then I grab the first Disney employee I see by both arms and wail, "My four year old is missing. You have to HELP ME."

He does. They all do. We were sent to the front of the park who then told us to go back where we were, where they told us to go to Baby Care, which is where Christopher was. That was is it. It maybe took fifteen minutes.

We found Christopher surrounded by young female Disney employees who were reading him books and watching Lady and the Tramp with him. He had his own stuffed Mickey Mouse and only started crying when he saw his mama come running towards him, sobbing.

I did. I sobbed. Big, heaving sobs. The fifteen minutes that he was separated from me and I had no actual control over whether or not I ever saw him again? That quarter of an hour tore my heart to shreds. I wasn't panicked; I was devastated.

But when I saw him sitting there with his little Mickey, and I could hold him again, I knew right then that it was alright. I loved him deeply enough, and I wasn't ever going to lose him again.

The magic of Disney at work, people. 

The weight of it all

Back in April, one of the things I decided to do in the healing process was to take better care of my body. To not take my health for granted and to celebrate aging.

Because, you know, some people don't get to. Age, that is.

I stopped dying my hair so that I could watch the grey come in, and I actually kind of like it. It's interesting. I started getting waxed regularly, which is another story for another day. And towards the end of April, I joined Weight Watchers.

There has never been a time in my life where I needed to lose enough weight to do something like join Weight Watchers. That was part of the reason it took me so long. I didn't want to admit that I needed to do something I considered drastic.

I set a goal of 35 pounds by September 9, 2012. That's tomorrow. And unless I lose seven pounds in my sleep tonight, I didn't quite make my goal. However, I'm pretty happy with the 28 that are already gone. I even bought a two piece to take on our trip. I'm not going to look 18 again in it, but that's not the point.

The point is, I'm going to look like a 39 year old mother of two and look extremely happy in it. And I'll be praying that my boobs don't fall out of it in the pool. Because let's just get it out there that the girls haven't joined in the dieting quite as much as I had hoped they would.

Yesterday, I had to weigh my English Setter, Aja, to get a prescription filled for her. I stepped on the scale without her and then stepped on again with her. As I put her down, I realized that I was putting down all of the weight I have lost since having Colin in 2010. Losing it gradually kept me from appreciating just how much better I feel. Picking up Aja and getting to set her back down again made the weight loss pretty tangible in an instant.

The best part of finally joining Weight Watchers isn't actually the weight loss. It's that I finally feel like I've learned to eat right. I've cut out at least 80% of the sugar I used to eat, and I feel so much better. I've added back more fruit and vegetables than I've ever eaten, and cut out the carb laden snacks and dinners. I've learned to make decisions about what I eat - that everything I put in my mouth is a choice. A choice that will be in line with my desired lifestyle or out of line with it.

The past few months have been about laying down the weight I've been carrying and making decisions that are beneficial to the life I want to have. That is, of course, only a little bit about dieting, and a lot about moving forward. But I probably didn't have to tell you that, did I?