Totes Granola . . . Kind of, Sort of, Not Really.

I am kind of an oxymoron when it comes to my philosophy on health.  I am a very natural person.  I was raised on herbs, my mom had six babies at home, she studied to be a midwife, she learned how to make her own herbal medicine from plants, we went on nature walks, she taught me reflexology, the first time I went to the doctor was when I got pregnant with my first baby.  After baby number two I decided I didn't even want to go to the doctor for that anymore and I followed in my mom's footsteps and started having my babies at home.  I am a strong believer in healing the body naturally without any medication.  I don't vaccinate and although I think it is a personal decision, I truly believe that someday vaccinations will be proven to cause far more harm than good.  I use and sell doterra essential oils.  My husband calls it all my voodoo, but he is becoming a believer.  My family is rarely sick and when they are it is minor and short lived.  I honestly can't remember the last time I was full-on sick, I always catch it at the stuffy, scratchy throat phase and it goes away using my voodoo oils or herbs.   I am currently trying to solve my five year olds complete lack of focus when it comes to school (possible ADHD) with oils and herbs and vitamins, I will let you know if it works.  I have stopped using tylenol for pain.  I would rather use Gods medicine than put chemicals and toxins in my body that have side effects that can be far worse than whatever they are trying to fix, like death.  Almost all ailments can be cured by drinking more water (that's kind of an inside joke, but often true).    

However, I love chocolate, desserts, cheese, hamburgers.  I like most healthy things too like fruits and vegetables and nuts.  But, if my husband offers to pick up fast-food for dinner, I am all over it!  I love me some trash food, and it has gotten worse since I married my meat and potatoes, deep-fried, southern comfort food loving better half.  I just got done drinking my spinach, vitamin powder, almond milk concoction that I added Nesquick to to make it taste better, yet,  I feed my kids corn dogs and macaroni and cheese and not nearly enough vegetables because I would rather they eat something and not have to sit there and say eat, eat, please eat, just taste it, at least 3 bites, please, please, please!!!  I make my life harder in that I make upwards of 3 different meals every night catering to my picky children and hoping they will get enough calories, even not so healthy ones, in their skinny little bodies.  I start my kids all out amazingly healthy.  They breast feed for at least the first year some longer, they eat veggies and fruits and whole grains, and then somewhere around 18 months to 2 years each and everyone of them have stopped liking vegetables.  They all still love fruit thankfully.  I can't afford to buy enough fruit they love it so much.  I truly need to plant an orchard in my back yard some day.   I always say I am going to make one dinner and if they are hungry enough they will eat it, but the stress of trying to get all of them to eat that dinner is far greater than its worth to me at this point in my littles littered life.  Am I ruining my kids for life?  Maybe.  My ten year old is finally starting to like more things and will actually eat several dinners that I prepare for myself and my husband, the rest are yet to follow.  I hope they will all eventually try and like healthy things again.  My mother-in-law forced my husband to eat healthy.  It was an eat what's on your plate or you don't leave the table kind of deal.  He even agreed to wear his green beans once when his dad gave him that option instead of eating them.  So, he was raised you eat what is made and he is the worst as an adult.  He eats lettuce, onions, mushrooms, potatoes and the occasional carrot smothered in ranch dressing or apple slathered in caramel.  That is the extent of his live foods.  If you can deep fry it or smother it in special sauce that is best for him.  So, that is my rational.  They will eat what they eat and I will hopefully keep trying so that someday they like the healthy stuff too.

I don't think I will ever be able to be the kale eating, organic only, vegetable primarily diet kind of girl.  I would rather not eat than eat something that I don't like, or to eat the same things all the time.  I tried a diet once where my food options were very limited, like chicken and eggs for protein, fruits, but not bananas, and vegetables but not too many potatoes.  I lived in Idaho until I was 11 so you just have potatoes with dinner.  After about a week of eating chicken every night, I nearly threw up.  There are only so many ways you can make chicken without a good cream or sugar based sauce on it ya know.  So, I started skipping meals and I stopped losing weight.  Now, I eat what I want with discretion, no more several handfuls of m&ms for lunch, I exercise, I eat fruit and veggies and I have never been healthier.  No more yoyo'ing and I don't have to feel nauseous at the sight of chicken :)  

Meekness Fail.

I was feeling pretty ok with how I have been reacting to life lately.  I haven't been yelling a whole lot.  I have been talking to my kids not at them.  I have been trying to reason even when my counter minions are screaming and throwing fits at every suggestion (mostly my 4 year old).  However, last night I totally lost my shit.  I felt that old pressurized feeling.  I felt that old nerve tapping pain in my neck and in my head.  I felt like I was going to explode and I did.  My five year old hit someone with a foam baseball bat resulting in that blood curdling scream throughout the house and I lost it.  I snatched the bat from his little grasp with that evil mommy look on my face I am sure, whacked the couch with it a few times, realized I was in the midst of my own fit, ran to my bedroom, shut the door, then my bathroom, shut the door and then proceeded to scream until every muscle in my body was tense.  My muscles were so tense that my ever expanding belly started to cramp, and perhaps that is a good thing because it snapped me out of my fit of rage and sent me into a fit of tears instead.  I was reminded that there is a tiny being I can't hide from no matter how many doors I shut in my escape and that he can hear and feel everything I say, scream, feel.  So, I cried it out for a minute and humiliated walked out to face the other damaged children I had left cowering on the other side of the door.  

Now, I can make excuses, I have plenty.  My husband is never home.  I am basically a single parent.  I never sleep well.  I am hormonal.  I have had an emotionally damaging past.  But, all of that doesn't matter.  Even though those things are real and they suck and they make life harder, they don't matter.  It's in the midst of the hardships that we show our true strength.  Right then, I was feeling pretty weak.  I started this post a couple weeks ago, I wish I could say that since then I have made glorious strides, but now I have failed at least two other times I can pin point and probably more.  Like the time my ten year old didn't get enough sleep because his toddler roommate woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to chat, resulting in an overly whiney day.  Or the time my four year old, who is my biggest challenge at the moment and can rarely speak to me below a whine or screech, insisted that eating his pizza in the office so he could watch a movie and began running through the house flinging pizza along the way while screaming of course.  Oh there is one more, even the time after an uplifting church meeting where I heard a fellow mom bear testimony of how she prayed for help with her current problem child and the next time she wanted to scream, she followed her heart and held her and told her all the things she loved about her instead.  It was so touching and relieving to hear that other moms (even perfect moms from church) flip out too, and I reset my resolve, yet came home only to be screamed at for 20 minutes about candy by my sweet number four who is four and I lost it, not quite so loudly, but still my anger boiled to the surface.  I wanted to break something I was so frustrated.  

For me it is a one minute at a time kind of success.  Some days I can count hours, and yesterday I actually made it the whole day without yelling.  So, I am going to focus on the good minutes, and beg for forgiveness for the bad ones and hopefully even in the middle of all the hard and mess and loud I will find my calm, my peace, and remember that I love these boys even when they are out of control buggin'.  That I will remember that I love them so much that they deserve my understanding when they are having a bad moment, and that I love them so much that I would never hurt them even with yells or screams.  In the mean time, when I feel this overwhelming anger, I will grab my one year old, he is my calming force, I will leave the room, hold him, rock him and thank God that he has that calming effect on me.  That's my goal anyway.  Wish me luck! (Someday I will be able to compile how I reached success I know it!)

My Antagonist and My Buddy

 My Calming Force

Love, Anemia and Denial

Happy Love Day!!! I personally am not that great at showing my affection for others.  My parents were awful at it.  I always got a little embarrassed when we lived with my aunt and uncle and they would kiss in front of us, like really kiss, not make out, but not just a peck either.  But, I also loved it.  I wished it didn't make me feel so weird.  I wish more that I had broken the cycle and was more affectionate myself.  I am working on it, it is a tough lock to break however.  I do love to show people I love them though.  I love making people feel special.  I am more of a gift giver than a hugger and a kisser... I love hugs and kisses myself, in fact I would say that is my love language, but not how I express love strangely enough.  So that is always my goal, to show my affection more outwardly, not be so guarded because of fear of what the receiver will think.  Fear is so debilitating and annoying and I really want to be done with it already.  

So, I went to my midwife this week and discovered, more confirmed, that I am severely anemic.  Although, I have had my suspicions, since I haven't felt this dreadfully exhausted since I was proclaimed anemic in high school, but it was nice to have a confirmation.  All the dominos have fallen into place.  I am not on some downward spiral of depression like I thought, however, it became one of the side effects.  After reading about anemia while pregnant, the light bulb turned on and everything I have been feeling all made sense.  Exhaustion being obvious, that's why I want to sleep all day and have no ambition.  But, I also learned that since my body is doubling the volume of blood, anemia can cause heart palpitations which can mimic anxiety.  It causes irritability, check.  It causes pale skin, check.  Dark circles, check.  Weakness, check.  Dizziness, check.  Headaches, check, check, check.  It was good to have someone confirm that something was actually wrong with me physically and not just mentally, ha, there is still that, but there is a cause and hopefully an end in sight.  So, now I am taking every supplement I can to try and get my iron and b12 levels back up so I can feel like a normal functioning, productive human again.  I seriously cannot wait!!!  Downside is everything I am supposed to take makes me feel so so sick.  So, now I am back to constant nausea along with still feeling like I want to die from tiredness.  However, I did have one amazingly productive morning this week.  I exercised.  I cleaned showers and walls.  I even got my tire fixed that has been leaking for months.  Yes, that is how tired I have been, even the thought of going to the store makes me want to cry because it sounds so hard!  Yep, I am ready for a steady level of energy.  I want to feel like I do more than get my kids fed and keep them alive throughout the day.  

I know I am kind of all over the page, but my hubs and I were talking and all of sudden I am really pregnant.  The belly has arrived.  I am nearly six months along so that is to be expected.  I truly think that this is proof of our mental power however.  I was in some serious denial before I had my ultrasound.  I didn't want to tell anyone.  I didn't really want to talk about being pregnant.  I didn't want to discuss or think about names.  I didn't connect at all with the fact that I am growing a baby.  I didn't want to think about being pregnant at all.  I just tried to get through each day and puke as little as possible.  I can still wear my jeans, not to brag at all, but just to show that I have been truly sucking this baby in just not to admit that I am pregnant.  I had heard the heartbeat several times, but it was always like, oh ya there is a baby in there.  Something about seeing him on the ultrasound, or finally announcing to everyone that I was expecting again that made me accept it.  Within the week I actually started to look pregnant, my belly started to pop out, I started to feel the baby move like crazy, I even started to love the sweet boy.  Sad, I know, that I hadn't felt that love  yet, the guilt still makes me cry.  But I Love this baby now.  It is undeniable.  I love every time he moves and reminds me that he is why I am going through this physical hell.  Yes, for me pregnancy is hell.  I am sacrificing for him because I love him.  The most beautiful part is that love for him makes me love my other boys that much more.  It reminds me that I went through all of this five times before, and I live my life everyday for them because I love them.