is it really bad that....

i like looking at pictures of people who have had kids to see how fat they've gotten? now mind you, i'm no super model. but sometimes it's the only way i can one-up infertility. just to think of how fat others get that DO have babies and how i'll never have to say "i just gained 60 pounds!" my arms aren't defined hardly at all anymore but they aren't THAT flabby. and my tummy isn't an hourglass shape by any means but it's not THAT tubby. really...am i so wrong that i secretly gloat at these things?

i've gained 5 pounds

5 pounds. since peanut came home. he's going to be 3 months next saturday. that's a LOT of weight to gain in that short of time. and i'll tell you why i gained it. but you have to promise not to laugh. ok...so i won't know if you laugh or not. i gained it because in my mind i was telling myself "i have a growing baby to feed. i need the energy" (aka-calories). what i forgot to remind myself was that I WAS NOT BREASTFEEDING and i don't need any extra calories. i know. it's ridiculous that i forgot to remind myself of that little tidbit but i did. so i fell off the sugar wagon with a thud and a giggle and i've been eating cookies and treats and worst of all: chocolate chips in a spoonful of peanut butter. UGH! should.never.do.that!ever!!
so now i gotta be really good again. and paul's been doing his p90x. he's been getting up at 5:30AM to do it too. i keep telling myself i'll go running in the mornings but then i'm up 2 or 3 times a night feeding mr. man and i'm so tired at 6am when i start rolling around and i end up falling back to sleep until about 7am when paul comes back upstairs to shower AND THEN it's too late because sweet pea starts waking up around 7:30am and paul's gotta head to work. i tried running in the evenings but do you have any idea how hard it is to run with your tummy full of dinner? it's hard. and i like to run far and there's not enough daylight left after dinner and bedtime. so. for now. i'm stuck. i could do the wii fit or do some of my workout videos or get out and go running no matter how tired i am. but for now i'll just remind myself that i don't need any extra calories.

Paul's Birthday

yesterday paul got his birthday present. it's the P90X workout video set. he loves it. i'm so excited. today he went out and got the tools he needs to do it. i couldn't really buy them because i didn't know exactly what he'd need. we sat down and watched a little bit of it to see how hard it's gonna kick his butt. sweet pea LOVED watching it and tried some of the moves. ugh. this baby kills me! i LOVE the way she puts her hands behind her back like this and i LOVE this little outfit. i know-it's too short now-but i just am not ready to pack it away just yet. i know once i do, she'll never wear it again. and i don't know that i'll ever have another little girl to wear it.

Sunday night we went out on a date night and went to a Nuggets game with Paul's work...free tickets, so we couldn't resist making it into a date night. Well, me and my good friend Suma went out to get treats and they took our picture. She posted it on Facebook today and I realized how much weight I've really lost. I don't see it because I look at myself every day. I weigh myself, so I know the numbers have gone down (20 pounds since Christmas of '08)...but I didn't realize until I saw the picture how much I've really lost!

bless your little heart!

today i went shopping with my christmas bonus. i'm not being selfish-our boss gives us our bonus and then takes us shopping to be sure that we spend it all on ourselves. it's really hard for me to do. REALLY hard. but today i went shopping for some much needed jeans. the last time i bought jeans was when mom and dad took me and paul shopping when we were poorer than dirt and paul was in school. today we were at the buckle and i told the girl i thought i was a size 31. i tried them on and whoa nelly. i'm not a size 31 anymore. i looked like saggie sally for sure! so i tried on the next size down, then the next! i'm a size 29! then i said "do you have them in a 29 short?" and she said "no...we don't carry the short in the smaller sizes." !!!! i'm now considered one of the smaller sizes? by the buckle? i could understand if walmart or lane bryant considered me a smaller size...but the buckle? i was shocked! i said "well, bless YOUR heart for calling me a 'smaller size'" and she chuckled and said "well you're smaller than me." !!!!! shocked again. so i guess all this no sugar business does have some perks. and maybe buying some way over priced pants will be the lucky charm to ensure i won't fit into them long because soon i'll have a pregnant belly. *sigh* maybe.
on that note-tonight i was putting sweet pea to bed and i often pray over her and i pray for her education and her development and her future and her family and for judge mclean and for all of the case workers and G.A.L.'s and casas and attorneys assigned to our case. i pray for wisdom and softened hearts and for the new baby and that some how it will find its way to our house. and that we will get to love this baby for years to come into her future and all of a sudden i got this feeling of "it's done. it's already written that she will be yours." and then i got this tiny bit of reassurance that she's not the only one. so we'll see.

booster for breakfast

she's eating her pre-breakfast breakfast....potato chips. hey, don't judge. she ate oatmeal and bananas after the chips. and they said to fatten her up!

i got my new shoes on

yesterday i got sweet pea some new shoes. we got home and i pulled them out of the box and she came charging across the room and sat down and started pulling on her tennis shoes so she could get them off to try on the new shoes. heehee! she is sooooo cute! i put on her new shoes and she was soooo proud of them. she loved them. this morning we tried to wear them to school (daycare) but they slip off after a short while so they won't make it a whole day. but i can't wait for this weekend so she can wear them.

big strides. ok, not BIG strides, but strides nonetheless

this week i took sweet pea for a weigh in. 15 pounds 11 ounces. YAY!!!! ok-so she's still not on the charts for gaining BUT she's gaining AND she's starting to walk AND she's teething. so when you add in those factors it makes my measley 8 ounce gain look like i'm raising godzilla. she's actually chubbing out of her 3-6 month pants. i'm so ecxited. i would LOVE if one week someone said "ooh look at that! a whole pound" or something ridiculous. or even if they didn't have to go back to their office to "check the charts." she's just so small that she doesn't fit any of them.

this week was a little bit rough for me. i got news about how things are going and it made me shake in my boots a little bit. i know she's not mine until the judge says so. and i know we are so so freaking far away from that that i can't even see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. but i still read into every little move and over analyze every report that comes back to me. and i know the case workers can't tell me so much stuff because of privacy and they can't mislead me in any way and i understand and even appreciate that. but if i could just get my hands on a genie bottle or a crystal ball. *sigh* i got to acupuncture friday night and molly said "so how are you doing?" and i just broke down into a pool of sobs. it was right after the shaking in my boots phone call. i feel so ridiculous. i KNOW what to expect. i can tell people exactly what has to happen between here and then. but my heart just refuses to follow suit.

which brings me to another update. acupuncture is coming along fine. but the sugar part of the diet is getting hard. it's still not hard to avoid sugar, but it is getting hard to avoid things like white flour, and potatoes that turn into sugar once they hit my metabolism. that part is getting frustrating. it cuts out pizza crust, french frieds, mashed potatoes, bread, crackers, sweet breads and treats that every office has sitting around. it's just getting hard. and i'm not doing good avoiding dairy. DAIRY. i gave up dairy YEARS ago because it made me sick. but now knowing that someone else says that i can't have it has me feeling like i need yogurt or american cheese. all these great little treats we have laying around to fatten up a certain sweet pea. (see above if you've already forgotten our fattening up mission.) i don't know. i hate to bitch and moan through this whole post of a pity party. and there's all these pregnancy announcements around me and i think "how'd SHE get pregnant?" i have to remember my problems are not everyone else's problems. and my journey is not hers. and i have to keep trying the path i've chosen because i don't know what else to do but give up. oh forget it. i guess i'm going to bitch and moan through this entire post. whoa is me. go on, give it to me. let me have all your pity.

it's been a WEEK!

sorry for my lack of posts. life keeps happening. tuesday we were supposed to run some stuff down to the girls and on my way home paul called and said their mom had called us to see if we could come over for dinner! OK! she made delicious stuffed shells and keep in mind-it was vegan and it was delicious. i told her "now i understand why the girls would cry through dinners!" ha! i took some fresh strawberries and white cake cupcakes for a strawberry shortcake of sorts and of course their mom knew how to whip up sugar-free-vegan whipped cream. we spent 3 hours just talking and eating and covering all the bases. their dad even thanked us and told us that we are welcome in their home anytime and we don't have to worry that we're calling too much because they appreciate everything we've done for them. it made me cry. we left feeling like our life is even more weird than we thought.

then friday night i went to my acupuncture appointment and we were talking about my diet and how i'm doing and molly was shocked that i was able to drop sugar so quickly. i kinda felt like "you mean i didn't HAVE to?" she also said she really wants me to try and go gluten free. at first i thought THAT is gonna be too hard. but then i got to thinking about what i would have to give up on top of what i'm eating and it would be....my whole wheat toast in the morning. we make pizza once a week with whole wheat flour AND mozzarella, i'd have to give that up. all dairy-ALL dairy-even my crack yogurt. my crack yogurt is: greek yogurt (that Brenda introduced me to just last week), organic dairy yogurt, a good squirt of agave and then some fruit-raspberries, strawberries, peaches, bananas-anything-you can't go wrong. BUUUUUUT, i'll have to give that up. but that's pretty much it-we're there already. the kids mom let me borrow a cookbook (again with the irony of my life) and it is all sugar free, wheat free, dairy free recipes. so that has been a wealth of information on other flours i can use. so today i'm going to make my grocery list and head down to whole foods and see what i can't figure out.

even though i have no kids of my own, i'm forming relationships with people i wouldn't have picked out of a crowd of thousands to befriend, i'm in a place in life i never in a million years, let alone 3 months ago, would have believed i would be, i'm using acupuncture to open my "chanels" in order to do what most people do on accident a million times around the world a day, i feel what i think others call "blessed".

day 38 out of nowhere

well...this month my cycle, which should be 28 days, ended at 38. it's not that i've been thinking i was pregnant for the last 10 days. i've been testing. i have to so the docters know if i'm having multiple miscarriages. which i am not. but there are certain signs that i have learned to watch for before my period. signs like my boobs got so sore the 5 days before my period they felt like a tiny midget was breaking in and punching me in the boobs all night. then they'd feel bruised for days after my period finally came. but this time seriously-they didn't hurt AT ALL. i could have been punched in the boobs yesterdsay and not felt a thing. so strange. because the last few months it was like if a bird sang the sound vibes would make them hurt. and they would swell up like pamela anderson, i am not exaggerating. i had to switch out to all turtlenecks for the week because the cajongas got so big i couldn't keep them down! but this time nothing. no signs at all but MAN i was getting the inner bitchy's. you know the kind where you think awful awful mean things to say but you know it's just pms so you stay quiet. oh-my inner bitch was out of control this last week!
on other notes i haven't been blogging because we've been trying to find new housing. it's not working out so great. we aren't able to find anything that we can afford. and then we won't be able to save up to get back into our own house again. so we're still undecided but i think we've decided, almost, to just stay where we are and wait for either 2 kids under 4 years old, or the same gender. not sure what else to do.
cute tatum story-tonight we were both working on our own things and tatum gave up on us playing ball with her so she put it up on the loveseat and then stood back and wagged her tail as if she was playing with the loveseat then she would lunge for it and grab it off the seat. sooo funny.

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!

Today we took a hike with some good friends, Jason & Liz, that we met in a small group when we were living in DC. Now they live here in Longmont about a hop skip and a jump away from us. I think they have hiked more of Colorado in the short time they've been here than we have in the entire time we've lived in Colorado combined. We had so much fun today I think we might make it a New Years Day tradition. Which made today the first annual New Years Day hike. It was GORGEOUS. I found out that I am WAY more out of shape than the mean old wii told me AND my lungs are about the size of peas. We didn't make it as far as we had hoped. It's about 1 mile an hour pace when you're hiking in snow AND we couldn't find the trail after a couple miles. On our way back we realized there was a lake 1/2 mile up in another direction on another trail. We headed up there and found the lake frozen SOLID! We played on that for a while and took lots of really cute shots. Here's one of them. I have no idea why my hat is down over my eyes, other than the fact that it was cold and snowy.

As you can see, Tatum is still a little reluctant about the new camera.

And here's another cute one of our family. I think this will end up being our foster photo.

I need to be a foot taller

i am currently gaining pounds by the day and i don't know what to do to stop it. i can't run which is how i've always kept the weight off before. i am eating salads for lunch but they make me starving by 3:00 and my stomach in knots by the time i get home so that clearly is not the answer. i want to work out but i'm so afraid of all of the conflicting information. i'm going to get a mayan abdominal massage in december. and we are taking off the next few months to get some vitamins into our system and get me some more mayan massages. but i'm going to ask for a yoga dvd for christmas and i'll ask my mayan massuse what kind of exercise i can do because it specifically lists running as one of the reasons i could be inconceivable. ha! i know that's not the real meaning of that word, but it sure fits that sentance doesn't it? at the rate i'm going now i need to be about a foot taller to not be considered overweight. BOOOO!!!

official time

i got the results of my race. my official time was 1:57:19. bummer. it turned longer. i was hoping it would get shorter. not sure how that worked.