For real this time.

After last week's ra-ra post on losing weight I sort of fell flat on my face. I lack discipline, and I got really lazy about my running program.

Today I found myself on the Weight Watchers site for the first time in almost 2 years. I watched myself with amazement as I typed in my old username and password and decisively signed myself up again.

I'm a rule follower. I'm not a rebel, I can't make shit up as I go along. I need to be told how to do things, how much I'm allowed to do, and I need a nice big pat on the back when I've done a good job. Fireworks are optional, but appreciated.

So a program like WW is perfect for me. I might resist a little and sneak a treat here or there without recording it, but when I'm on WW that little treat would be more like 2 snack-sized kit kats. When I'm free-styling a treat is more like melted cheese on toast, a bag of chips WITH DIP, and some ice cream. Way over the top.

You can go ahead and figure out what that means about my personality.

So, NOW you can all sit back and witness the incredible melting girl. Last time I lost 30 pounds in 5 months by only dieting. This time we're adding in some fitness so I'm expecting to be ready for my 'after' picture a bit more quickly than that.

Oh ya, that's right. I took a disgusting 'before' picture of myself last week. It's so scary that even Jeff hasn't seen it. In fact, I didn't even tell him about it. That's how embarrassing it is. But I will be thankful in a couple months that I did it. And who knows, once I've reached my goal I may even do one of those side-by-side pictures and we can all ooh and ah over it.

Then you can set off fireworks and give me some high-fives, k?

Call me vain.

Hair.

As a woman it's our crowning glory, no? We spend SO MUCH money on it, obsess over it, critique it (and everyone else's). Hair is what we use to hide behind or make ourselves stand out in a crowd, depending on your personality.

I luuuurve my hair. I love that I was gutsy enough to go through with chopping it all off. I'm growing it out right now just so I can chop it all off again. I'm a fan of grand gestures.

What I don't love is something that I spied in the mirror today. Every woman that's ever spent any time at all in front of a mirror scanning the top of their head knows exactly what I'm about to say. Gray hair.

Okay, not a lot. But not just one or two. They're interspersed all.over.my.head. Prior to 30 minutes ago, I was totally A-OK with having a natural hair color while I was growing out my hair.
Not anymore. Oh hell no, the only thing I have to decide on now is color. Hi-lites? One color? Decisions.

The only that is certain is that 32 is far too young to worry about this shit, and I am so glad that hair dye was invented!

Let's do this again.

Two years ago I started documenting a weight loss journey on this 'ol blog. I was 159 pounds and had just had a baby a couple months earlier and could be forgiven for carrying an few (or 35) extra pounds.

So I joined Weight Watchers, started counting my calories, and lost a grand total of 31 pounds. Success! I was SO CLOSE to my goal of 125 pounds and I promptly declared myself cured of the fat. And went straight back to the horrible eating habits that got me into trouble in the first place.

Which brings me to today and my current fat-ass weight of 153 pounds. Almost smack dab right back at where I was before. EXCEPT last time I had just had a baby 3 months earlier. I do not have that excuse this time.

I got lazy, I NEVER got into the regular habit of working out, and then when I stopped to think about how far I had let myself go I got depressed and would eat more crap. Vicious cycle.

So new plan. Back to counting calories, which I KNOW to be effective. But besides just that, I'm also taking up running. Indoors for now since HAVE YOU SEEN IT OUT THERE? Once the white crap melts, it'll be outdoors.

The ultimate goal with this running is to enter a 5K. I'm going to get halfway through my program and then book myself into one. No excuses.

I have a long-term goal but it's EXTREMELY unrealistic at this point so I think I'll keep it to myself. Suffice it to say, it's over a year away and totally bad-ass. It's so beyond my scope of even imagining that most people would giggle to themselves if I told them.

I'll do it though.

Boo-hoo.

These days I feel like a salmon swimming upriver. I don't know what it is about the age of 2 that makes parents feel absolutely unprepared to deal with toddlers, but I do know it's a common theme.

At least I hope so. Maybe everyone else has it together and I'm the only one that has no grip on reality?

Because my youngest kids are effing animals. Although once I think about it, when Nicky went through this destructive phase, Josh was too young to mimic. Now that Josh is there, it's like Nicky is reverting.

The result is I want to hurl myself off the High Level Bridge.

This past week has been especially trying. They're fighting, with fists. They yell at each other. Josh gives Nicky shit every 5 minutes. They tattle on each other constantly. They are breaking things and wrecking things at record speeds.

Nicky has taken to acting like a frill-necked lizard. If you don't know what that is, google image it because I can't for the life of me figure out how to link properly. But, when he feels threatened by Josh he'll hiss at him and you can just picture, if he had a frill it would be WAY up there scaring Josh off.

And it's effective, 95% of the time Josh runs away. It's also the only levity in a really annoying situation.

Because I swear, I discipline. I don't let them get away with awful behavior. They go for time outs, they get spankings, they get toys taken away. They get yelled at, talked to nicely, bargained with. They're loved, they're not ignored, I'm engaged with them. I'm definitely not a perfect parent but I care about how they turn out.

And still. I feel like I'm raising future hood rats.

So that's why I feel like a salmon. I know eventually I'll be successful but damn is it hard on the way there. And I know it's not even the hardest part yet because I'm going through THAT with the oldest one. Although one could say that it's not necessarily harder, it's just a different kind of hard.

I meant to turn out a light-hearted, jokey post. Instead I spiraled down into mommy-whine. Honestly though, lately I've been aching to have the same stomp-your-feet, bawl-your-eyes-out, red-faced tantrums they've been having. But someone has to act like the adult.