Emotional Day

Three years ago today I lost my baby boy. A lot of healing has gone on in the last three years. It's taken me a lot of heartache and pain to get to the point where I can talk about him now without breaking down. Much of that is thanks to my precious baby girl. She doesn't replace him, but she helps fill the void his loss left in my heart. I will never stop missing him, or wondering what he would be like and that's ok. That's part of being a mother, the love never stops.

I was alone last year when this day came and went, and while at least I'm not alone this year, Kolt and I are apart, again. Probably for the best as it's not really something we do anything for. I also think that's one of the differences between being a mother vs a father. It's not to say that Kolt doesn't miss him or wish he were here, he just doesn't live in the past and has moved on. Part of my heart will always yearn for that little boy, now two ways around it, that's just how it will always be.

I am beyond grateful for my perfect daughter. She keeps me going when I'm down. It doesn't matter how sad I am or how hard I've been crying, one smile from her gorgeous lips and everything is ok. She gives me purpose and hope. I try the best I can to be the best mother to her I can be. I was given another chance through her to be a mother after losing two babies, and I don't intend on letting her, or them, down.

Today my thoughts are full sadness for what could have been, happiness for what is, and anxiety for what's to come. All things considered, we are very blessed, and believe me, I don't forget that.

Whirl Wind

Things have been rather crazy since my last post. Our home on base was packed up and put into storage. Leila had her first Easter. We moved me and Leila up to Idaho, spent the long weekend with our great friends and family. Now it's over and Kolt is gone. Today he's in San Antonio getting everything ready to go to combat skills training, tomorrow he leaves for CST, and on Monday he begins his month of awesomeness training, learning how to be a "real" soldier.

I've been debating for weeks about how honest I'm going to be in my blogs now that the real countdown to deployment is on. Still haven't decided, truthfully. I feel like everyone expects me to be upbeat and proud and strong, all of which I am, but I just can't decide on how much, if any, vulnerability I'm going to show on here. I'm already feeling scrutinized and judged by some (which I'm sure is unintentional) and on the days that I'm feeling down and just really missing my man, not sure I'll be in the mood for a "buck up! this is what he joined for, be strong," yada, yada, yada. I'm sure some of you reading this understand that point.

Leila and I should be reunited with him in 34 days (yes, I'm counting. I know everybody says not to, but that's my personality and if you think it's a bad idea, you can bite me) in San Antonio. I am very much looking forward to that three weeks where there should be nothing to do, but just BE together. He's already out processed, filed for leave, and he shouldn't have to work. I'm working on planning some fun outings, trying to soak up every second of time we have together before he leaves.

I miss him already. It's stupid since I just saw him yesterday, but everything has been such a whirl wind I didn't really have time to process the fact that he was leaving until I was kissing him goodbye in the air port. It's his job, and I'm grateful for the opportunity he has to gain this experience and serve those soldiers fighting for our freedom in the Middle East, but that doesn't mean I can just give a quick hug and kiss and send him on his way. Maybe there are some that can, I am not one of those women. I will miss him every second that he's away, and I will be sad at everything he will miss our daughter experience and do, and I will cry, a lot. That's what I do. It doesn't mean that I'm depressed, it doesn't mean that I'm bitter that he's gone, but I feel like as a woman who's genuinely loves my man, it's my right to miss him and ache for him while he's gone. If that makes me weak, then so be it.

We had a great weekend with our friends and family. We surprised Kolt a few times with friends he didn't know he was going to get to see, which was fun. We went bowling and shopping and spent some good quality time together. I'm glad we were able to do all that for him. Here are some of the pics we took:

It's not that hard

Today I weighed myself and I'm down 60 pounds since Leila was born and am now 10 pounds less than I was when I got pregnant with her. This has been a long process for me and hasn't just been about dropping the weight, it's been about an entire life style change.

People look at weight loss like it's this daunting task and so impossible to do. Any time you report your positive results the first thing out of many peoples' mouths is "What's your secret??" And there in lies the problem. There is no secret. It's not about a diet, or pills, or specific work out regime that magically works when others may not. While it is important to figure out what YOU can work with and manage, it's honestly just about making a commitment to be healthy. To put health, wellness, and fitness above your love of fatty, processed, and unhealthy foods. It's about knowing that it's better to walk than take the drive when you can, using the stairs instead of the escalator, choosing REAL food and cooking it yourself, not buying pre-made instant meals and eating out at fast food chains all the time.

That's not to say you can't enjoy a little indulgence now and then. It's not practical to think you can only eat lean meats and veggies ALL the time. There's nothing wrong with going out and celebrating a special occasion with some amazing steak and creme brulee. I hate diets that restrict anything, it's an automatic set up for failure. We're human and I think it's in our nature to want what we can't have. That is why I don't have anything that is off limits to me. In fact I had three super delicious chocolate chip cookies yesterday and still lost 1 lb because the rest of my day was balanced. That's what it's all about, that's what the "secret" is. Balance.

Not that I'm an expert on the topic, these are just my thoughts based on the last 8 months of losing weight. Everybody stumbles, everybody has plateaus, everybody's body is different and struggles. And I truly believe your body has a "happy" zone in which that's where it performs the functions of daily living optimally. It may be 5-10 pounds more than your ideal and therefore the only way you can get there is to starve yourself. I think that's the point when it's time to realize it's not worth beating yourself into the ground and dreaming of food you refuse to eat to be your "ideal." As long as you are active, eat well, and do your best, that's all you can do.

Of course, I say it's easy now but when I get down to my last 10-20 lbs I may be singing a different tune, I know that. But I just don't understand why it's SO hard for Americans to realize that the secret to life long health and weight loss is eating well, eating smaller, healthy sized portions, and moving your body in some form or another. That's IT. No secret ingredients or patented methods here, just real life common sense. Wake up people, and take charge of your health and wellness!

Mixture of Emotions

Reality check. I'm moving back to Idaho in two weeks. TWO. Where in the world has the time gone? I have a mixture of emotions about this. On the one hand I'm really excited to be going home. No offense to the San Antonio residents out there, but this place is a $&*# hole. It's hot, and dirty, the drivers are insane, anything interesting to do is at least 20 miles or more away and with gas at $4 a gallon, it costs a fortune to go to the other side of town to see my friends. I'm just NOT going to miss San Antonio at all. My heart is in Idaho and it will be wonderful to be home for a while.

What I am sad about is leaving behind the friends I've made here. In one year I've made some fantastic friends and I will miss them terribly. Chrissy and her boys in particular, and not just because she takes such awesome pictures either (although she does), but because she's the only friend I have that "gets it." I have some amazing friends, but she's the one I go to when I'm frustrated, sad, anxious, scared or whatever about this deployment. She's been there, she knows, and nobody else does. He hasn't even left yet and there's still a bond among women who go through a deployment that no one else can understand or relate to, though they try. And besides that, she just gets me. Our men are equally stubborn at it's nice to talk to someone who understands. You'd think 8 months isn't really that long, but her little boy just turned 2 and I watched the video she made about his 2nd year and I saw how much changes in that time period. How much kids grow up and how much even their moms do too. I'm going to miss her like crazy, thank goodness for texting, skype, and facebook!

Yesterday Kolt and I were out shopping, gathering the little essentials he needs to help make his deployment easier and out of no where it hit me, he's REALLY going to leave. I'm about to move cross country with Leila and he's going to leave, fly across the world and live in a war zone. Of course I've known this forever, but sometimes it just randomly really strikes me and it hurts, and I cry. That man may drive me crazy some times, but I LOVE him with a fire and passion that burns deep in my soul. I know we'll survive without him, I know we'll be just fine, but oh how I'm going to miss him.

My posts may be few and far between for a while, not sure how many people read this and who actually cares, but I do promise to keep everyone up to date.

Here are some pictures that Chrissy recently took for us :)

The true nature of Titus and Leila's relationship

Early Summer Fun

So it's been a while since I've updated!! Nothing new going on in the deployment front. I gave our 30 days notice last week for our house (eek!) and that's about all. Kolt spends almost every spare second that he's home working on Readiness, boo. But I'm glad to have him home.

I started Weight Watchers while Kolt was gone. In that two weeks I lost 7.5 lbs! I'm loving the program and it's changed so much about the way I eat. Usually when we would go grocery shopping we spent most of our time in the middle of the store where all of the boxed, processed, pre made food is, well not anymore! Most of our time is spent in produce, a little in the middle, then the rest in dairy and frozen. I LOVE looking at our grocery cart when we're done and seeing all the wonderful healthy foods. I'm now in clothes that I haven't been able to wear in over three years and hope to be out of them by May. I've been running three days a week and trying to go to the gym on my off days, I just feel like I have this new lease on life. FINALLY we're living a healthy life style, and I'm hoping Leila will grow up learning to love to eat well and enjoy exercise.

Kolt and I made a trip to Whole Foods today to shop for sunscreen. I'm sure by now many of you have seen this website http://www.ewg.org/2010sunscreen/ and Kolt and I were shocked to learn about how awful the most common sun screens are!! Thankfully, the kind we bought for Leila was ok, but we went today to get new bottles for ourselves. We happened to find some made by Alba that were on sale so we didn't spend an arm and a leg because many of them are quite expensive.

The reason we need sunscreen is because we're going to Canyon Lake this weekend. It's supposed to be 92 and I can hardly wait. I'm not thrilled about getting into a swim suit, but if I'm being honest, I look better now than I have in years! I'm pasty white though, definitely need to work on my tan. We'll be hanging out with our Air Force family, The Nesbits and The Amports. We will have a BBQ (turkey hot dogs and black bean burgers) and swim, it will be a blast. This will be Leila's first experience with swimming and I hope she likes it. I'm really sad because the swim suit I was dying to get for her was sold out at Carters today. Boo. We'll have to settle for a different one from the BX. She'll look adorable no matter what she wears though!

Leila has two teeth now. They just popped up out of no where. I need to count my blessings and be grateful that I had no clue, so many of my fellow August moms have had an awful time with teething. So far she hasn't bitten me, she did bite herself today, it was quite sad to see her cry afterwards.

I think that's all for now. We have just over three weeks until Kolt's parents get here! Good grief where is the time going?? Before you know it we'll be moved out, in Idaho, and Kolt will be gone :(

Updates

We sent Kolt off to St. Louis on Sunday for a training. I cried at the air port when it came time to say goodbye. Not necessarily because he was leaving, because it's only for 2 weeks, but because I know the next time I say goodbye to him in uniform in that air port, it will be for a good long while. Time is just FLYING right now and I can't stand it. My baby girl will be 7 months in a few days, I have no clue where this 6th month went! We are moving out in about 6-7 weeks and saying goodbye to this house for good. Kolt's parents will be here in 5 1/2 weeks and that just blows my mind. There are so many little things happening up leading to the "big" thing, that it's happening so fast and I can't wrap my mind around it.

I was seriously stressed out about Kolt leaving and being totally alone with Leila. Not because I don't think I'm a good mom, but some days your baby has just been fussy all day long and you need a break. Thankfully, so far, it's been no big deal at all. I miss Kolt in the evenings especially, but for the most part she's a very good companion, and has been an angel. I'm so lucky to have such a good daughter. It's really funny to notice how much different this time apart has been different from our other experiences. Because I have a little one to take care of, all of my energy isn't focused on missing Kolt. Granted, it's been 3 days, but still, I can notice a big difference. Last night he didn't text me "goodnight" before he went to bed and in the past that would have broken my heart. Why? I have no clue, I'm needy I suppose. But I love that I don't NEED those things to make me happy anymore. It's nice, but not necessary, and I'm grateful that I'm maturing and growing in that way. Hopefully it only gets better as our time apart increases.

I've started Weight Watchers this week. I've lost a total of 50 lbs since Leila was born, but since January I'm only down 9 lbs and that's just not enough progress for me. WW accounts for breast feeding and that's a big reason why I decided to check into it. So far I'm really liking the online program, I'm a very visual person and it has little boxes to check off when you have a serving of water, veggies/fruit, dairy, etc. It's really made it obvious to me how little fruits/veggies I've been eating. It's rather embarrassing actually. I've got another 50 lbs to lose ideally and I think this program will help me get there. I've also restarted my Couch to 5k running program and hope to be running 3 miles 4-5 times a week in about 6 weeks. I'm also doing various other exercises on my off days, as the running is only 3 days a week, and I'm hoping to lose at least 5 lbs while Kolt is gone. 8 would be better but I try not to set super high goals, so I'm not disappointed when I can't make them. I'll update everyone weekly with my progress, I'm very optimistic about this!

A glimpse

My daughter is really starting to develop her own little personality. She gets mad if she's whining and you tell her, "It's ok, sweetheart." Oh boy, does she get mad. She screams even harder if you patronize her as though to say, "Don't you tell me how I feel!" She's got a pretty great sense of humor and laughs all the time. She's genuinely a happy baby and I love that, even if she is going to be stubborn. Today while playing with her I looked into her eyes and I felt like I got a glimpse into her future and who she is going to be, and I'm proud. She's going to be incredibly smart, funny, and opinionated, JUST LIKE HER DADDY. But I also think she'll have my warm, caring, and nurturing side as well. She's the best of both of us, and my heart is full. How I LOVE this little girl.

We found out this week that the date we have for Kolt's deployment is the day he has to be there, not the day he leaves from here. So we just cut a week off of our time left together, but honestly, this is a good thing. My sister and her whole family will be in Idaho in June and I was just going to miss there visit before. It looks like now I'll get to spend a little bit of time with them and Leila will get to meet her, uh, second cousin, maybe? My niece is having a little girl next month, so whatever my niece's daughter is to Leila.....we'll just call them cousins. So all in all I'm excited. He's going to leave anyway, the sooner he leaves, the sooner her can come home.

Lifetime network has a new show called, "Coming Home" a show about deployed military members coming home to surprise their families. I watched a preview of it and I started bawling. I've been SO focused on him leaving, that I've forgotten about him coming home. What an incredible day that will be. I find myself fantasizing about it, imagining what that first hug will feel like after so long. I wonder how Leila will react after 6 months away from her daddy. I am trying not to wish my life away though. There are lessons to learn, trials to solve, adventures to take before he comes home next year. I'm trying the best I can to just focus on today and being in the moment and enjoying the fact that for right now, my family is together and happy. We can deal with the rest as it comes.