Santa

My husband and I took Emily to see Santa today.  As I predicted, she wanted nothing to do with him this year.  Last year she was just kind of mesmerized by him, she sat on his lap looking at him like, I just don't know what to make of him.  This year, the second we got close she clung to me like a baby orangutan and Santa said I would have to sit next to him with her.  It's nice that he apparently doesn't believe in making a scared child sit on his lap, but man, I didn't want my fat ass in the picture.

Speaking of, last week I did ok with my diet, but could have done much better, didn't exercise at all and I lost 2.5 pounds.  This week I thought I did about the same with my diet, or even a little better, I went for a mile and a half walk three days this week (four counting today) and I GAINED 3.5 pounds.  WTF?  I know the scale isn't always a clear picture of what is going on, I could have eaten something yesterday that caused me to retain water, I could be at a point in the cycle where I am heavier, who knows.  But I am currently in the red when it comes to loss, so any loss right now is a morale booster and I need that boost to keep me going.

Even though I know this week's weigh in could be a fluke, it will still be harder to keep on track this week, than if I had had a loss and could go into the week feeling good.  I wanted to be bathing suit ready by the time we go to Disney, but at this point, if I lost 1-2 pounds a week, about the most I will lose by then is about 20 pounds.  I will take it, anything is better than nothing, but man, I'm really bummed.  I wanted to be able to take tons of pics and actually feel good about them.  But, the Disney trip will come no matter what, so I can either lose the 20 and be happy about it, or still be the same or even heavier by then.

I've started walking my dog every day while Emily is napping, and Ryan is home with her.  It's not much, but five years ago when I lost a lot of weight, it started with just walking.  I like walking, and I use my dog as motivation because she really needs to burn off some of her puppy energy, and I have not been doing a good job with keeping up with her training.  But I know if I can just get in a solid two weeks of walking her every day, she will be doing much much better with loose leash walking, and then from that point on walking her won't be as much of a chore, as she won't be dragging me around the neighborhood.  So on a day that I feel lazy, I just think to myself that I have to take her or else she'll forget her training thus far.

I found on pinterest, a good way to visualize your weight loss is to get a jar full of however many marbles you want to lose (one marble equals one pound) and another jar to put the lost weight in.  So I was pretty bummed to not only have to move those 2.5 marbles back to the "need to lose" jar, but I also had to add an extra one.  Oh well, I WILL get to my goal someday.  I've been converting all of our old family movies from VHS to DVD, so I've been watching a lot of videos from when I was like 18-23.  I've always felt fat, all my life, as far back as I can remember.  But watching those videos now, not only was I not fat back then, I was hot!  Damn, I wish I could go back and enjoy it.  I guess I felt fat because I was curvier and more muscular than the stick thin girls.  Yeah you could probably pinch some fat on my tummy and thighs, but what I wouldn't give to go back to being "that fat".

So anyway, we had a nice morning, visiting Santa and then we walked around the museum for a little bit and then came home and had lunch.  We picked out our Christmas tree the other day, and Emily and I went inside their little camper to pay the guy while my husband got the tree loaded.  I don't know if it was the man, the camper or both, but as soon as we went in and sat down Emily started bawling.  I tried setting her down in front of me but she wanted back on my lap, and the tears were flowing.  I don't know if she thought I was going to leave her there or what.  Though the camper, and the man for that matter, were a bit creepy.  She is definitely getting to the age where she is very weary of strangers and wanting me close by.  She loves being at her grandparents' houses, and she's very comfortable with them, but unless I quietly slip out the door when I leave, she's crying and beating on the door as I leave.  It breaks my heart, but also makes me kind of happy at the same time.  It's nice to know she misses me.

So once we got the tree up we attempted our family picture in front of it.  It did not go well....we had trouble getting Em to sit with us for any length of time, and the dog was just going nuts.  Every picture was a blur of black, otherwise known as our dog.  So we decided to nix the dog, and just did the three of us.  After a few takes we got a pretty good one.  Of course once I ordered the cards, I went out and tried taking a picture of just Nalah in front of the tree, and she laid down so nicely and looked so cute with her little Christmas handkerchief on.  So I thought I would cancel the order and make a new card, with our family pic, a separate picture of Nalah and then maybe get a really cute pic of Emmy by herself in front of the tree too.  But they wouldn't let me cancel the order.  Never mind the fact that the store was closed and wouldn't be processing it until the next day.  Oh well, the cards still came out nice.

Tonight I took Emily out to run a few errands, and I noticed earlier that her face looked a little sensitive, but then I noticed her forehead, cheeks, chin, neck, and behind her ears were all blotchy and broken out.  Her forehead felt a bit warm so I texted both my MIL and stepmom to ask what it could be.  They both asked if her chest/tummy/back/pits were broken out.  So when we got home I checked but they weren't, and she didn't have a temperature.  We just got a new thermometer, like the old fashioned ones except without the mercury.  I got sick of not being able to trust the digi ones since they always give out different readings.

I was nervous to use it since it's a rectal and it takes 4 minutes to read.  But luckily some music on my phone distracted her enough to get a reading.  A few times she looked up like, man, why is that thing still in my butt?  A few weeks ago my husband was sick and he wanted to take his temperature but he couldn't since all the thermometers in the house have been in Em's butt, lol.  But I did remember my BBT therm hadn't been in anyone's butt, so he used that.  I'm glad I got the non-digi one, since that one read normal and the digi said her temp was 99.2.  Not worrisome, but still, I hate the wonky readings.

She had been a bit lethargic this morning and took forever to go down for her nap....normally she is out like a light, so I thought that could be related to her rash.  But this evening she was happy and full of energy, so I ruled that out.  Then I realized ya know, I bet the rash is from sticking her face in the Christmas tree.  I've caught her a couple times crawling underneath it, going after the cats.  Goofy kid.  I'll keep an eye on it, but I'll bet that is what it is from.