Hitting Reset

I was sick at the end of last week. Sick meaning home from work, complaining at nauseum to anyone that would listen and trying, trying, trying not to inhale every tasty piece of food that had the nerve to be in my house. I find it very difficult to focus on eating right when I’m sick. It’s like the cooties sap my energy as well as my ability to say no.

We all hope you can get well soon.  7 year old in his jammies handing it to me first thing in the morning.  I die.

Over the last 5 days, in addition to eating all the food I normally eat, I’ve also helped finish off a bag of Rolos, 2 whole bags of Flavor Blasted Goldfish, pancakes, 2 ½ boxes of Special K chips, a frozen strawberry daiquiri, more Rolos, 1 piece of chocolate cake and roughly 8 pounds of grapes. And, no, 8 pounds is not an exaggeration. Two 1 ½ pound bags followed by two 3 pound plastic containers. My kids ate some of them but let’s be honest, the vast majority got shoveled into my face.

Dear Mommy, Get well soon Mommy.  I hope get well soon Mommy.  Balloons. Kinfede=Confetti. 

And if the cooties sapped my will to eat right, heaven knows the cooties sapped my will to exercise and burn extraneous calories. I laid and laid and laid around some more. I laid around so much I actually got tired of laying around. And I’m a grade A lay around-er.

My children took pity on me and attempted to nurse me back to health by showering me with their attention. This sounds great until they’re telling you to move over on the bed to make room for their 3 foot tall Super Frog and want to hold the remote. No, I do not want to watch The Last Airbender. No, Phineas and Ferb is not my favorite show ever. And I feel confident we’ve watched too much Kickin’ It when I catch myself singing along to the theme song.

My daughter was not so patiently waiting for me to defeat the powerful cooties. Not because she loves me and wants me to feel better but because she was eager to hit the mall for back to school shopping. I’d be okay with never entering a mall again but she enjoys Justice. She especially enjoys Justice before school starts when she gets to pick out a special outfit to wear on the first day of school.

This is our third year letting her shop for her own first day of school outfit. The first year was Gymboree. The next year was Gap. This year was Justice. She thinks this tradition is very exciting. Someday she will realize it’s just a trip to the mall. Someday I will realize I’m an idiot to ever complain about a kid that just wants to hang out with me.

She's mostly into sparkles and accessories.  Right now she’s trying to convince me she "needs" a leather biker coat from H&M. Apparently a friend’s mother has already fallen victim to the leather coat “need.” I’m still holding the line though. My go to explanation is that it’s currently 100 degrees outside. Shuts that kid down every time but unlikely to hold up through December.

And since I was getting dressed and leaving the house, I decided it was time to hit the reset button and get back to business.

So I put on my compression shorts and went for an hour long bike ride. Running seemed like too much. Walking didn’t seem like enough back to business. Plus there’s a breeze when you ride a bike and that helps the molten lava sidewalk seem less molten-y. When you walk, it’s just you and the lava comparing notes the whole way.

It felt good getting back out there and gave me the boost to mentally hit the reset button on my cruddy eating and general laziness.

I pulled my favorite work pants out of the dryer this morning to put on and I swear they felt tighter. My first instinct was to blame the dryer. I’m trying out not using my scale for the entire month of August so I have no way to know for sure if this is actual dryer shrinkage or Rolos induced expansion of the Jelly Belly. But whatever.

It’s Monday. The universal day for starting over. So I am.

Reset.