Bless me, Father. I'm a repeat offender

Thank you in advance for agreeing, via mouse click to be my confessor today.

Procrastination is like a shitty boyfriend. You know you should just cut him out of your life because it feels sooo bad. But then again... it feels so very good right now.
Read the following while I tend to my sore ass. Procrastination has bitten me once again...

I am up to my eyeballs in work that remains undone... SHHHHHH! Don't tell anyone... I have progress reports due in the next two weeks tomorrow, and a new system for tracking the fourthousandsixhundredandninety-two file items that belong in each child's Head Start file to enter for 11 kids. I could be doing progress reports right now and I ALMOST did it! Then I remembered that there are like nine more days until the end of the month. So I still have plenty of time! (started this post DAYS ago and am just now finishing it)

Confession #1 - On the morning of the 30th I will have about 4 out of 11 completed and still be telling myself I have plenty of time to bang out the other seven before the end of the next day. That's the way the SassMaster rolls, poppets... on half a tank of gas, one flat tire and ALWAYS fifteen minutes late. Aren't you glad you're not my supervisor? Check! It's the 30th today and as it stands: 4 reports complete.

Confession #2 - If I even think about singing The Wheels on the Bus, or The ABC Song I want to hang myself with a macaroni necklace...

Confession #3 - Because my home page is Facebook, I often get sucked in to 30 - 45 minutes of FB before I realize I logged onto the Internet with some other purpose. By that time I've forgotten what my mission was. But I've posted 4 or 5 witty quips about my friends' kids or laundry and perused all sorts of brain food like what folks have had for breakfast, who's at the mall with or without kids and who's got a big ol' iced coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. And please understand that it's not that I don't care about this stuff, because I so do! When my girl, Jen has an iced coffee she smiles and feels loved and looked after by the delightful man she married - and that makes ME happy, too. But poppets, this is what keeps me from my progress reports.
Facebook hinders my responsibility. The sad truth is that FB is the last scrap of any recognizable social life I have. I'm hanging on with both hands. Responsibility will have to wait. I NEED to know what Diana's having for dinner tonight.

Confession #4 - A year and a half ago I was a size 14 and thinner than I had been in over 8 years. I made a promise at that time that I would never be bordering on a size 20 again. Guess who's size 18's are working harder than the Hoover Dam these days? I am no longer worried about who or what I DON'T look like. The magazines and MTV no longer make me shrink into a corner, bearing the terrible weight of unworthiness that slumped my shoulders and drew my eyes toward the floor. What necessitates a lifestyle shift now is that I feel like shit ALL. THE. TIME. I don't need to be skinny. (I let go of single digit pants sizes when I was 20 years old.) I just want to learn to be well and stay healthy. So, I'm sacrificing SassMaster secrets for the sake of being held accountable to change by virtue of the fact that the information is out there. PEOPLE KNOW... Here you have my numbers, cyberspace: I am a 34 year-old mom of 2 who wears a size 18/20 pants and XXL everything else. I weigh well over 200 pounds, but admittedly, I haven't stood on a scale since they wanted to weigh me 6 weeks after The Viking emerged. And my blood sugar numbers have been borderline diabetic. I'm beautiful. I'm worthy. I'm smart, funny, kind and I'm good at my job. I am the best mother I know how to be. But I'm not well. And I want to be.

In the following months I will attempt to take back my body and make it my own again. That was what I told myself when I was undergoing the Essure procedure to block my tubes. The last ten years have been consumed with hormones, ovulation tests, cervical mucus, prenatal vitamins, eating for two, growing babies, breastfeeding, breast pumps, birth control pills and patches... and it's all behind me now. Now is a new chapter. If I can use this body to birth two completely new human beings, I can use it to rebirth a healthier, more energetic and stronger ME.

This is going to be painful and no doubt you're going to hear all about it... bear with me. There's bound to be humor in losing my death grip on the Nutty Bars.

I know about God because I grew up Catholic. I have spirituality because I've been involved with Al-Anon and I know Grace because I am a mother. As I've gotten older, I recognize that I am now more spiritual than I am Catholic. Dictionary.com sites one of the theological uses of Grace to mean: "the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them."

The Scene last week:
The Tornado and I are ready to leave the school building and I have just dropped the "we have a few stops to make before we go home" bomb. I was cringing inside waiting for the procession of scowly faces, stomping feet and "humph" noises that typically follow such an announcement. But they didn't come... I eased my finger off my crazy-mom trigger and re-holstered it hesitantly... We made it through the grocery store and to another school site to pick up classroom supplies in a comfortable quiet that was interrupted only periodically by the soft command to "turn it up, please" when he heard the Beastie Boys rattle the already-blown speakers in the car. Our last stop was the library:

{Please excuse the following A.D.Detour...}
 It's really lovely, as a parent when your child shares a common passion, and for The Tornado and I, it's books. We don't go to the library to get a book. We go to get BOOOOOKSS!!!! We then pay lots of FIIIIINESSS because we are not so good at the returning things on time part of the library adventure. 
{umm... The End}

Although I walked into the library, like I always do, with the sense that some wonderful treasure was waiting for me to reach out and grab it by it's skinny spine... I actually found very little that inspired me. However, the Universe was about to remind me that, tonight I'd brought the treasure with me... and for some strange reason on that Tuesday, he was wearing his father's socks pulled way up past his knees. (God, I love that kid...) I was ready to hit the road with the few books I had half-heartedly piled up when The Tornado loped over with a big grin and an arm load that included a World Atlas, Valley of the Dinosaurs, a book about fresh water mammals and Junie B. Jones. The selections were so totally Tornado, it was impossible not to smirk. On our way out, he said as he held the door for me, "Here, I'll take some of those too, Mom. Then you won't have all the load." As we walked to the car I told him he was growing up to be a real gentleman. He said he hopes that means someone who's getting a cheeseburger for dinner. Just as we reached the parking lot, The Tornado looked up and spotted a single star in the sky and started to recite:

Star light, star bright...

I wish I may, I wish I might

Have the wish I wish tonight.

So, I made a wish. I thought it was a pretty great wish... Who wouldn't KILL for Bavarian eclairs that made you lose weight, right??? (By magic, I threw in at the end... none of that shit-yourself-skinny business) Most clever wish I ever wished... I was feeling pretty pleased with myself until I heard from the back seat,

 "Mom? Did you wish that we would always be together?

Humility hit me like a pile driver but I didn't miss a beat. "How did you know?" was the only acceptable response, of course. And his self-satisfied expression confirmed that he's still too innocent to see right through me.

I get discouraged about the things I forget to do, put off doing or don't have any energy to do in a day... I beat myself up about being late, too heavy, financially irresponsible, too loud and completely unfit to prepare a meal that is not 90% boxed or frozen.

You see, there are a great many things I don't like about me. But what I DO like about me is that those moments don't get lost. I recognize and honor the times when God tosses me a shiny bauble.
Ironically, I went into the library looking for fairy tale books that wouldn't make me gag. I feel fairly certain that cheeseburgers were not among the "tokens" typically bestowed upon a gentleman in days gone by, but once upon a Tuesday, under a single star, a budding gentleman scored himself a McDouble for charming my socks off. 

*Wow... God AND fairy tales. This post is a two-fer! You're welcome.

Insert, the waaaaay over used "You like me!" Sally Field reference here... Two people have recently passed on this award to me, which I can't help but snort a little. I am the least stylish woman I know. If only they could see me now in the pajama bottoms I've been wearing on and off all weekend and mismatched socks. My style is the BLAH kind that would make Stacey and Clinton guzzle arsenic martinis - jeans, solid color t-shirt or jersey and May - early December: flip flops. But as there are no images of me that appear on this blog, I realize that the award has been given based solely on my writing. I hope this means I have a unique voice, and developing that writer's voice and finding my own style of writing was one of the reasons I forced myself to add my nonsense to the completely saturated market of Mommy Bloggers in the first place - write as often as you can and write what you know - check... and check. Appreciation for doing something that has been fun and provided me with some personal growth over the past few months is a huge bonus.

THANK YOU,

Shannon and Heather!

Please check out their respective blogs, 

ShaunnaMichelle's and Teens and a Toddler

Now, my job is to award some other blogs that are STYLISH, too. I follow only a few other blogs that don't belong to the lovelies who awarded me, but in the spirit of recognizing and promoting traffic to some other fun blogs with writing styles I love, I'm passing on the award to:

Elizabeth Crocker

http://thewayiseeitthroughmylens.blogspot.com/

her photography is AMAZING and her family story is touching and hopeful....

I have to recognize

Shelbi at

http://www.mymommystory.com/

her tag line says it all: How My life Went from Happy Hour to Story Hour, and

she's also a self-proclaimed mom-prenuer who makes SUPER STYLIN'

hair embellishments for little girls of all ages at Gigi and Lula

also!

The Craft Happy Mom

I'd love to see this blogger get some more traffic too - she posts tutorials and great anecdotes!

I am supposed to post 7 things my readers don't know about me, but because I have been a lazy pile of flesh and pajamas on the couch for the last two days watching Season 4 of Dexter, I have to pry my eyes off the screen and go do something that looks like taking care of the kids or housework... I might "Swiff" the living room and put an open box of Goldfish on the kitchen table for the kids to find. 7 tidbits about the SassMaster to follow... some other day.

Now, run along and play...

Mommy has a headache.