Mercies in Disguise

Last Thursday, about 10am, I received a call that my daughter was running a fever of 103 and probably had Hand Foot Mouth Disease. Gross. This is the second time she's had it. The first time, I think she was between 6 - 12 months. It covered her from head to toe, looked so incredibly painful, and lasted for what seemed like forever. And there's nothing anyone can do about it, except keep the Motrin flowing. This time, she ran a higher fever for a few days and only had a few spots, thank goodness! Besides being tired, she was in a good, playful mood and pleasant to care for. Though I will never wish her to be ill in any sort of way, taking care of her all weekend did provide me an "out" to the Labor Day festivities. I felt a little lonely since my husband went to hang out at his brother and sister-in-law's house with all our friends. But I was thankful I could be home in my "safe" environment where I knew I couldn't participate in the "Guess-the-Flavor-of-Oreo" contest, which I heard had every imaginable flavor of the cookie. So thank You, my Loving Father, for having mercy on my daughter, and knowing that I needed to be home more than I needed to be celebrating with friends, sodium, sugar, bad fats and the guilt that would soon follow after arriving home. Not to mention I truly needed the down time. When my daughter took her two hour naps, I was doing the same at least 4 of the 5 days I was home since last Thursday!

And it all paid off!! I lost 2.2 pounds this morning :) :) Mama's happy :) :)

Speaking of "Labor" Day . . . at the end of today's workout, Ashley and I were called to do Jacob's Ladder. I've heard nothing but horror stories of this man and his torturous device. On the way over, Ashley said Jacob's Ladder was the second hardest thing she'd ever physically done, child birth being the first. I had to laugh, or I would cry. I COMPLETELY understood this statement. For the short time it took to walk over to the ladder, I had a flashback to my maternity leave. I can't think about it too long or I start to cry. This made me realize, yes, Ashley!! We can do ANYTHING because we've given birth!! I don't know if it was this perspective or what, but Jacob's Ladder really didn't seem that awful to me. Challenging? Most definitely. However, the most difficult thing I found about it was to keep a steady pace by keeping "the number" at about 60. Being my first time, Rick said I did well and that practicing will help with keeping the pace steady.

After I was done on Jacob's Ladder, I switched with Ashley and moved to the StairMaster. I'm soooo thankful I've been spending time on the stair stepper. The StairMaster didn't seem  difficult at all to me on the level Rick set for me. When we were done on these two pieces of equipment, we went back to join the group in the gym. To my surprise, most everyone was standing around and looked done. I'm amazed sometimes at how fast the workouts go. And then I heard those two terrible, horrible words: "wall sit!" My thighs have NEVER burned that bad before, and my legs were shaking. Why, all of a sudden, did the encouraging thoughts about being able to do anything because I gave birth, suddenly vanish out of my head? All that went through my head was "Oh, no. I can't do this." To my deep regret, I stood up for a second, maybe two during the 60 second wall sit. And then the fear of having to do something worse or do it all over again pushed me back down and I was able to finish the wall sit. When EJ called time, I remained for just a little bit longer to punish myself.

Ashley said Rich helped her through the wall sit today by making her laugh. Dibs on wall sits by Rich on Thursday!