When a Father Faces Justice

My biological father has been arrested and extradited to my home town. He abandoned me by the age of 6 months old and never sent a single cent in my name. By the time the authorities pulled him over (while driving drunk, without a lincense, and with weed on his person), he owed $32,000 in my name alone. That is 18 uninterupted years of neglect and evading the authorities. At the time, my sister and I had already made arrangements to take in our 15 year old sister from our father because he was trying to save up enough money to go turn himself in to the authorities for this exact thing. He was living in a tent in his stepdaughter's back yard and letting his three kids just sort of stay where someone would take them in. It was bad enough for Brittney and I to step in and be the big sisters we know all-to-well how to be and get at least one of the children in a stable environment. We still have a sister over there, but she seems to be happy with her mother in a way that the one we took in can't be.
Up until this whole ordeal I was never given the truth about basically any part of their lives with my father. But I was the one to fly my sister in and drive her the 6 hours to Brittney's house so I got to hear everything. It was a hard experience for me and it unleashed some of the nastiest skeletons that existed in my own closet. It was a Pandora's Box sitting and talking with this sister just hearing about her life and the things she experienced and witnessed on a normal basis. It was just a very difficult thing to have to face.
Tomorrow is his arraignment. Tomorrow my aunt and grandmother are going to sit in the same room as him and watch him make his plea. It will be intense because my uncle who is my father's brother will also be there and it will be high tensions going around from all angles. It is not at all the kind of family reunion that anyone wishes for. The only redeeming factor involved for me is that I won't have to be there and I know my mother won't be there either. I don't want her to have to see him if she isn't ready. There are a lot of things that passed between them to have gotten married, had a baby, and divorced. I just want her protected in all this mess too because he is just not right in the head or the person she knew 25 years ago. How do you make sense of all this? I guess no one has an answer to that one...

E Update

We finally took E in to the gastro specialist yesterday and it was such a deep relief for me. Not because we got great news or were told she is fine, but because the opposite happened. I have been worrying myself to death since she was born because I could see something wasn't right with her health. She started getting smaller and smaller and not gaining the weight we knew she should and when we tried to feed her baby food, she got even worse. Her reflux is back and she can't eat baby food without it coming back up or making her sick the whole rest of the night. So yesterday I was finally able to sit down with a specialist and get her looked at and her history sorted through with her doctor. The first thing he said is that she is a failure to thrive baby and is significantly small for her age and that something is wrong. After discussing everything I told him, he has decided that there is something more than just a baby who needs to eat more going on and he will be admitting her into UCLA for three, maybe more, days to run tests. He had a lot of blood drawn to start searching through that way also. Within the next two weeks, we will be finally going toward the bottom of this. I mean, just yesterday when they weighed her, she only weighed in at 13 lbs. 2.5 oz. and she is 8 months old. I am so looking forward to getting answers or a diagnoses that will help us in getting her healthy. I have also noticed that she physically can't sit up. The only way she sits up is in your lap because she seems to have weakness in her back that even the doctor didn't like seeing. He is going to have a neurologist check her out during our hospital stay to see. I am admittedly scared but I know that whatever they find, the Lord already addressed it's existence and blessed her to heal from it. This will all work out because God is involved and I have faith in that completely. He will watch over her and guide her doctors. Please send your prayers E's way.

Comparison Time!

Okay, these pictures are of when I started my weight loss journey and now. I have lost 20 POUNDS! Of course, my next blog will make that quite ironic. Stay tuned......

Roller Coaster Life

Life is such a massive roller coaster. Lately there seems to be such an amazing amount of stressers going on. E is not gaining even close to enough weight and I am about to march into the clinic tomorrow and start negotiating to get her specialized care. She has put on all of 5 ounces in an entire month, won't eat baby food or rice cereal yet, and always has dark circles under her little eyes. What has me so upset is the obvious lack of alarms going off with my doctors here. When we had her weighed in not very long ago, they weighed her in at 10 lbs, 13 oz down from 11 lbs, 7 oz. only two weeks earlier. And you know what we got? "Give her rice cereal and baby food." Tah Dah. I honestly believe that when you have a 6 month old baby come into your office weighing massive ounces less than two weeks earlier, you should have them admitted and tests run. If not that much, at least put in the referral for a freaking specialist in pediatric GI. Something is wrong here and no one but me seems to be catching on to that here. Aside from getting her to a specialist, I am going to take the steps in getting her permanently moved to a civilian pediatrician. I need her seen by a doctor that deals solely with babies and children and can focus more closely on E. It is just such a frustration for me as her mother. All I want is for her to be healthy and well taken care of.
M's speech testing has rapped up and we received the results yesterday. She has a speech disability in her expressions. So, we will go in on Wednesday to sit down with the tester and she will walk through the results with us and explain what we need to do next to help M. I feel like I did the right thing taking her in for the testing even though no one told me to or said anything. I just noticed certain things about her communication and comprehension skills that seemed not at the same level as other children her age. Luckily, we found where the break down is and can start her on speech therapy and might even be able to get an IEP for her when she starts preschool. Just maybe we will be able to get her in with Head Start because of the results. If not, we will still be able to start nice and early with intervention and therapy.
G is talking finally! We have got her saying please, thank you, welcome, baby, dada, mama, bye bye, I love, and Mel for M. It is awesome because she waited about six months longer than Melody to start talking. Of course G was walking months before M had at her age, so I guess it all evens out. She is just such a joy and we just love them all so much. Even in my most miserable state, I can still see so much to be happy and grateful because of D and the girls.
Speaking of miserable state, I had myself a darn good meltdown. I think that life kind of builds up on me without my noticing and the next thing I know, I am a disaster. I started crying and I didn't know exactly why, but I couldn't make it stop either. Almost like I had to decompress. Oh well, that is life. Tomorrow is my third weigh-in since we started Weight Watchers and I am quite nervous. My mono has caught up with me big time and I took an entire week off of exercising to recover my energy stores. So, I know my results will be poopy compared to the first week when I was working out like a crazy person. On the other hand, D is rocking the weight loss. He was at 10 pounds lost after his last weigh in, so YAY! I can honestly say that I am not disappointed in myself compared to him, I am just excited for him.
All in all, things really are going well. I had my first Mary Kay party and did really well considering it was my very first time. The girls are wonderful and deeply loved and D and I are very happy. There are challenges lurking, but I know we can take them on no problem if our faith is plugged in. Until next time...

WOO HOO!

So, today was my weigh-in day for Weight Watchers. I was grumpy and thinking there was no way after everything I have tried that this would be THE ONE. But, I sucked up my impending doom and got out the scale that is in a very special hiding place that doesn't allow temptation. (Which is by-the-way hidden in the top of my closet.) Now, let me say, I have been swimming every fricken day for an hour at a time and all I had accomplished was a stupid 4 pounds in a long month. This had made me very leary of that evil and disappointing scale, but I was brave and got it out. Okay, drumroll please...... I lost 6 POUNDS since I started this last Wednesday. That is 6 pounds in 6 days just from changing my awful eating habits. I had no idea just how toxic my eating was until I stopped eating that way and started the Weight Watchers. I know that a pound a day is not typical weight loss, but I think it happened that way this last week because I started drinking tons of water so I stopped retaining fluids. I have been eating tons of fruits and vegetables too, which is quick and easy on the body to digest and burn. The only meat I have really eaten has been ground turkey and yummy shrimp. I just am loving finally having real results like I have been dying to enjoy since I started this whole weight loss challenge. I can eat anything I want, but it all counts for points depending on calories, fat grams, and dietary fiber grams and you are only allowed so many points in a day. So, I can throw away all my points on one meal of indulgence or I can eat smart and be full all day and still have points left over at the end. Even better, I am allowed so many indulgence points in a week so I can have a nice dinner out with D if I want and not have to feel guilty about it. Or we can go to the movies and have a soda or candy. I just love it. It is something that has actually worked for me and not left me desperate for my old faves. Even D has lost 7 pounds in the last six days. That is AMAZING!
On another happy note, I have been timing my 500 breaststroke since I started swimming a few weeks ago. Before I started, I asked D what the Navy requires to be passing for a 500 and he told me 12 minutes, 50 seconds. So I did my first 500 that day and came out at 12 minutes, 20 seconds. I was stoked! That was after 8 YEARS of no swimming and I was able to just do it that fast. So, I have been working on that often and a week later, I was able to do that 500 in 12 minutes flat. Again, I was stoked. Now today, at about three weeks from the first time I did it in 11 minutes, 45 seconds. That means I have shaved 35 seconds in the space of three weeks all by myself. That is huge for me to be able to show for my fitness level like that. How exciting! Well, I just wanted to document my progress and maybe send out hope to anyone else struggling like I did for so many years. I know I was pregnant almost all of it, but I am officially at my pre-pregnancy weight for my last two babies right now and it feels great! Now I am going to work to be in the 150's for the first time in almost four years! Only 3 pounds to go and I will be there! Wow. It just feels good to be here.

How Much Is Too Much?

I have been working out a ton over the last three and a half weeks. I have even accomplished some wieght loss and everything. But here is the predicament, I have mono (the kissing disease as some may know it) and it is starting to just take over again. I was diagnosed after having it active for five months in which I moved from Japan, was pregnant, had a c-section, and then had a colic and reflux baby. I was diagnosed with it when I finally couldn't take having a sore throat every waking day of my life and wanted to know what was going on. I mean, it got so bad that I could no longer sing a hymn at church or have a long conversation without my throat becoming raw. So, I go to the doctor, she says what she thinks it is, I have my blood drawn, and off I go on my way thinking that things like that just don't ever happen to me. I didn't get a call back and I missed a follow-up appointment to get the results so I just went on my way until one night while D was in Las Vegas and my grandmother was here helping me. The doctor calls me up at the very end of her work day and says, "your results came back positive for the mono, will you please come in and see me?". So, I was in her office the next day just to be told that all I could do was sleep and rest to get better from this. I about laughed out loud since my grandmother had been tending to E solely the entire time she had been there and I was still chasing around the other two and we were both busy at all times. Sleep and Rest??!! Anyway, I went home and made some phone calls to the Relief Society president and she called my visiting teachers. Before I knew it, I had people at my home every day for me to take naps and meals being delivered nightly so I had that much less to do. Sometimes someone would even clean or do laundry for me and before too long I started really feeling much better. I thought I was out of the woods and would just have occasional moments of being more tired here and there. Instead, as soon as I would try to push myself just a little, I would be hit with another sore throat and exhaustion. This held me back for MONTHS from being able to work out or do much more than daily house work until I finally went in to my doctor to see why I just wasn't seeming to get any better. She just told me that it could take easily as long as two years before I would be really better from this. So I went home and resolved myself to feeling mildly tired or having a mild sore throat here and there until I kick this awful virus.
Well, as I said earlier, I started working out about three and a half weeks ago. I was thinking to myself that exercise could only help since it is supposed to be great for a body. Well, before I knew it, I was going overboard in no time. I was going to the gym, ballet, yoga, the pool, and doing Pilates at home and hardly eating anything. Plus, I wasn't sleeping due to the fact that I have a very small infant that still wakes a minimum of two to three times a night. I don't know about other mothers of babies that wake as often as mine, but I hate going to bed any more. I feel this dread that as soon as my body relaxes into real sleep, I will be pulled right back out to take care of E. I can stay calm and quite rational if I am already awake when she gets up, but if I am forced awake, I am grumpy and lacking in any form of patience and I hate being that way soooo much. I hate it for E, for D, and for myself from guilt. So, I got myself into a health deficit in no time flat. I was putting out massive amounts of energy in exercise and care to the kids and house while taking in half the food and rest.
Just this weekend, it all caught up with me BIG. I went with C to the Mary Kay convention that was on Friday and Saturday and by Saturday, I was so sick I hardly held it together to get through the event. As soon as I got home, I went to bed and hid and by Sunday, I had completely lost my voice and could hardly take care of the smallest task. Today I woke up feeling better in the sense that I can talk again and I was okay taking care of the kids, but not the house. It is like months of extra rest and naps and such has been undone with only three weeks time. I think all this has boiled down to a very raw fact, I don't understand balance. When I want something as bad as I want to lose weight, I don't know how to not go completely overboard. This has been the case as far back as I can remember. So, here is the question, how much is just enough to be healthy and doesn't cross over into danger to my health. Not too long ago, I decided that my efforts were not giving me gratifying enough results and I was just devastated and angry. I wanted to either kill myself trying or give up completely. That was when D entered in and saved the day. He just told me that I was doing great and that this is the way weight loss always runs, it is a battle to the death at first and doesn't give ridiculous results like we tend to want. Then he asked me if I love to swim and I told him I didn't even know anymore because I felt like I was getting nowhere with it. It was then that he helped me realize that no matter what the outcome of the swimming and dancing, I love DOING them regardless! I LOVE to swim. I mean, I love that sport so much that even as sick as I have been I was still in that water today and loving every second of it. So, I am officially going to do things for the enjoyment instead of the weight or anything else. Weight loss is an awesome bonus, but I want to do these things because they are fun and invigorating for me. I just have to be more tuned into my body and its need for rest and nourishment. If you don't already know, I have had a long time battle with eating disorder behavior that has improved sooo much, but still looms around time to time when I am feeling vulnerable, sad, angry, or out of control. I have worked my tail off to put that behavior in the no-no zone, but it is something I work against in times like these. Luckily, I am just too darn happy to give in to it for too long and I have an incredible support system to boot. Not to mention that I sure developed a love for food being pregnant for almost three years in a row LOL. Okay, well, I have do that sleep thing before it gets too ridiculously past bedtime. Until next time...

Car Alarm Grace

So, my dear and precious G is a character all her own. As her mother, I have grown completely accustomed to her communication styles and find them to be either annoying or cute depending on the current situation we find ourselves in. While in Fallon though, it was brought to my attention by my goofy and lovable family members that G actually sounds just like a car alarm. Yes, you heard me right, a CAR ALARM. Whenever G really wants or needs anything, she chooses to make this noise that does in fact sound quite like one instead of bothering with actual words. My Grandma's opinion on this predicament is that M, who is quite the vocal child, does plenty of talking for she and G combined. I have tried my very hardest of late to try teaching my darling middle child to use words and it is about as traumatic for her as punishment. She will become absolutely beside herself with anger if I so dare as to demand an attempt at a "please" or "thank you". Now the oddest part of all this is the words that she actually does volunteer such as: "what's that?" "bless you" and the occasional "thank you" when given voluntarily only. Of late, I have even gotten her to acknowledge that I am mama only to have her decide to call herself mama two seconds later. Oh, the torture of a stubborn 17 month old. Woe is me!

Not too long ago, E was given her blessing in church by D. It was an amazing faith building experience for us as her parents. D and I fasted and prayed previous to the blessing and so when he went up in front during Sacrament meeting to administer the blessing, it was very spiritually charged. As D stood up there and lay his hands upon our dear baby, he was nearly over powered by the Holy Ghost to the point that it became difficult for him to speak or keep from weeping. Now, for a man to go through that, it is a very powerful experience. During the blessing, D was strongly impressed that E would meet and marry a very good man and the other moment that stood out was a shock to both of us. During the blessing, D was just saying what came out of his mouth through the Spirit and at one point, he blessed her to heal from her illness. When he came back to sit down afterward, I turned to him and questioned him what on earth that meant and he honestly couldn't tell me. As I sat and took he and E in, I could see the love of God himself flowing from D to E. There was a bond created so strong that he wouldn't let go of her until he left for work that evening. He looked at her differently and I could see that something very sacred and powerful had been created between them. All from one beautiful blessing. I can say as a mother and daughter of God, it built my testimony that much stronger to be a part of that moment.

So, as usual with me, I have changed my hair yet again. I have decided to go red for a spell and enjoy that. Also, I have decided to become a Mary Kay consultant and I could not be more excited. I know that for whatever reason, I feel completely drawn to this business and the personal growth that will come out of it for me. I have also started working out everyday and will be starting an adult ballet class tomorrow. All in all, I feel like I am becoming a whole person. I have even enrolled M into a Montessori preschool starting on March 31st until the end of this school year and she will continue with the new year in late August. I have had to face my demons in putting her out into the world even for three half days a week where I cannot protect and nurture her or control her environment. But it is vitally important for both of us for me to let her do this now so that we can both grow and develop, but it doesn't change how scary it is for me! Well, I need to try and recover the disaster that is my house after a day of abuse from the kids! Until next time...