Turning a Page

Last week I mentioned that we had a big decision to make.  Well, we made it.

 Image via here.

In just a few weeks, MacGyver will finish up his last class and will be an official engineer.  It's been a long, hard road, and we're both so happy to be moving on from the 'student' life.

For the past 6 months, he's been aggressively looking for a job around here.  He's had some interviews, but nothing has really panned out.  So on a whim, he decided to interview for a job a few hours away, and it went really well.

So in just a few weeks, we'll be packing our bags and moving about 2.5 hours away.  We're really excited, but also really nervous.  The company that MacGyver will be working for is well-established and really successful.  He feels like it will be a great fit, and there are some awesome benefits.

We've got quite the to-do list going on this week.  Lots of cleaning, fixing, and organizing to get our house up on the market.  We're hoping it sells quickly.

We're bummed to be moving further away from friends and family, but we're very thankful that we will only be a couple hours away.  Plenty close enough for day trips home and we'll be able to come home for birthday parties and stuff.

So off we go on our own adventure!

College Bingo

I found this on Pinterest yesterday, and nearly hurt myself laughing.

I have for sure been in at least one class where these things were happening.

I bet you have, too.

Enjoy a good laugh, and then call your roomie and reminisce.

The Poor Timing of Little Dude

Oh, Little Dude.  For being 100% planned, you sure are coming at a busy time in our lives.  Well, it's really our fault.  We're (apparently) not good at math, and some things have changed in the past 8 months.

For starters, I found out I was pregnant with you 4 days before my first half-marathon.  Scratch that one.  In case you were wondering, it's a total drag to do all of the hard work and training for a 13-mile race and then not get the t-shirt.  Well, at least I got the half-marathon legs (you know, before I started retaining water).  Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be worth it.

Secondly, we planned for you to be born in May or June (let's just go with May, okay?) so that when Dad was going to graduate, you'd be 6 months old.  That way we could keep at least a few months between major life changes.  Well, the good news is that Dad is graduating sooner than we thought!  Hooray!  The interesting part is that his graduation ceremony is just two weeks before your expected arrival.  Hmm.  I guess if I can be picky, don't come on May 14th.  Or the few days before.  Thanks for understanding.

And third, you're kind of interfering with my love affair with this guy:

It's true.  Your nerdy mom is a Harry Potter fan.  Don't worry...I'll read all of the books to you and your sister someday.  But here's the thing.  The very last movie hits the theaters about 6 weeks after your due date.  Some would say that's perfect timing.  The problem is that I cannot leave my newborns babies toddlers offspring.  I'll admit to a little attachment parenting.  Hey - it works for me, and it worked just fine for your sister.  Don't get me wrong, Little Dude, dad and I enjoy the occasional evening away from sticky children, just not at 6 weeks of age.  Plus, I supply the nutrition.  If you're anything like your sister, I wouldn't be able to leave you for more than 2 hours at that age, anyway.  It's a good thing you'll probably be cute.

So what will I do about Harry?  I'm not sure yet.  I can either wait until it comes out on DVD (sad!) or I can somehow drag you along to the theater (I'm fairly positive that taking a newborn to a movie is included in the definition of bad parenting).  I've been seriously considering the feasibility of taking you to a matinee showing after the crowds have died down.

Even though your arrival is going to interfere with some other life events (yes, buddy, Harry Potter is a life event), we're positive that you're the perfect little boy for our family!

Let's Do 52: Handwritten

A few weeks ago, the prompt for "Let's Do 52" was 'handwritten'.  I immediately thought of this lovely stack of letters that I have in a box in my cloest.  I keep most cards/letters/notes that I recieve, espeically those that are meaningful.  I pulled the box down to find a good 'handwritten' object for the photo, and found these gems:

My stack of letters from MacGyver while he was on his mission.  For those of you not familiar with our story, we dates for about 6 months, and then he left for a 2-year service mission for our church.  We got to talk on the phone only 4 times in the two years, but we were able to write letters each week.

Looking at the stack of letters brought back so many memories of watching my mailbox like a hawk.  I'm sure my college roommates remember it well, too!  It was tough to have such strong feelings for someone, and then be limited to letter-writing for two whole years.  In the end, it was one of the best things to happen to our relationship.  We got to learn about each other and were able to develop a good friendship.  And we'll always have these letters, which I know we both treasure.  It's really fun to read them and remember what our 19-year-old selves were like.

So I thought I'd share why this stack of handwritten letters is one of my favorite posessions.

Happy Monday!

Holy Wake-Up Call, Batman

 A few weeks ago, my darling daughter strutted into my office looking something like this:

 

Just as I was contemplating how adorable she looked, she looked right into my eyes and said, "Do I look skinny?"

Whoa.

That's right.  My freaking 2-year-old wants to know if she looks skinny.  Sadly, I know where she picked that up.

Let me give you some background here.  Like just about every other American girl, I thought I was fat in high school.  Well, not fat.  Just 'chubby'.  Like just about every other American girl, I was not.  Not fat.  Not chubby.  Normal.  Of course, I had beanpoles for friends, so I was comparing myself to them.  Really not fair, but that's what I spent all of high school doing.

I went off to college and decided I was never going to do that again.  I was moving to a new town with new people, and I was going to give myself a new start.  I was going to know that I was skinny.  I had a healthy weight, so I figured I might as well embrace it before my years of matronly child-bearing arrived.

Problem was, I gained not the Freshmen 15, but the Freshman 50.  Turns out, ordering a DIET Coke with that pizza at midnight doesn't 'cancel it out.'.  I was cursed with my grandmother's fat-burning genes.  As in, none at all.

By the end of my freshman year, I was chubby.  Heck, I was fat.  Here's the problem, though.  I had decided that I wasn't ever going to feel that way again.  Oops.  So now I was overweight, but I couldn't see it.  I spent my sophomore and junior years at OU happily eating like crap and gaining weight without noticing.  I know it sounds stupid, but it's the truth.

Then, for some strange reason, I looked in the mirror one day and nearly had a heart attack.  I was married by then, so I asked MacGyver when I got so fat.  Like a good little husband, he muttered something rather non-committal.

I decided right then that I was gonna lose that weight and keep it off.  And I did!  By graduation, I was pretty dang close to what i weighed when I graduated high school.  Fast-forward a few years, and we had a rough year of non-viable pregnancies.  Spending 9 months of one year in the first trimester of a pregnancy does a number to your waistline, let me tell ya.

When the Sunbean was 6 months old, I happened to have another unfortunate look in the mirror.  Yikes!  Didn't like what I saw.  I dropped 100 pounds in the first year of her life, and am still at a healthy, happy weight.

I plan to stay here, too.  There is just one problem.  When I look in the mirror, I do not see a 120-pound momma.  I'm not saying I have some severe eating disorder or anything.  No need to send the psychiatrist over.  I just spent so many years thinking that I looked good, that now I approach myself with extreme caution.  I'm just a little insecure.

Aaaaaand now we're back to the point of this post.  Every.  single.  day.  I ask MacGyver if I 'look skinny' in my outfit.  He, of course, responds with the proper enthusiasm.  I just never thought about the impact it was having on my daughter.

In that moment, when I saw my baby girl asking me if she 'looked skinny', I saw her adolescent years before me.  I realized that I can give her a gift:  the gift of a healthy lifestyle with healthy habits and a healthy body image.  I can show her that by eating good foods, staying active, and having self-confidence, that yes, she does indeed look skinny.  No, she looks great.  She looks healthy.  She looks perfect.

I made a pact with myself that day.  I will never, ever, ever ask again if I look skinny.  I may ask poor MacGyver if my outfit looks okay, or if it matches (he's good with fashion....I'm lucky), but I'm just throwing the insecurities out the freakin' window.

It's a gift I'm giving my children, and, finally, myself.