"Elmo is Red, Red"

The title of this post reflects what my sweet Adey said yesterday. At bed time, after showers, I took her into her room to get her dressed and picked up Elmo and asked her, "Adey, who is this?" She said, "Elmo." Then I asked her what color Elmo was- she said "Elmo is red, red." Holy crap! Seriously did she just say that? I took her into our room and told Jessica she had to see this. When Adey repeated it again Jessica started crying.  At 2 and a half years old and what seems like only moments of clarity, for Adey to understand the questions and respond in a way that we could actually understand her- it's just AMAZING. Seriously amazing. It makes me think about the time the PT person told my wife that Adey wasn't going to be able to do anything, ever and that she seemed "retarded." (On a side note: Jessica flipped out at this statement and left the place in tears and then we demanded to have PT at an outside agency).  Anyhow, it was a great way to end yesterday!
Before all of that, Sunday was an interesting day. Jessica called about 10 am to give me the update of her night (she didn't go to bed until about 5am!) They were going to go down for breakfast and then hit the road. She said she was going to be tooooo tired to go to the store for food for the week. So, I got the kids ready and headed out to Target and then to Winco. With 4 kids in tow we headed out. It went pretty darn good. No melt downs, when they asked for items I calmly reminded them of the bribe I had already arranged for them. If they were good at the 1 store, they could choose one item $1 or less for a treat at the 2nd store. Even the 2 year olds got it! We got what we needed and 3 of the kids picked donuts.
Donuts are bad news for me.  I use to get donuts almost every day on my way to work- it became sort of an addiction. I'd tell myself tomorrow I wont buy them. I was living in the moment and didn't truly consider what I was doing to myself. I worried about getting fatter and even diabetes, but clearly that wasn't enough. I can't remember the last time I ate a donut. It's been at least 5 and a half months. But there they were- 3 donuts (Adey picked a cookie).  Jocey got a maple bar and ate 1/4 of it before she decided she was full.  There was 3/4 of a perfectly good donut. I admit that I seriously considered eating it for about 5 minutes. I debated- listing the pros and cons. But my biggest fear won and kept me from eating that donut. You see I think one key to my success this time around has been routine and sticking to most everything I say I am going to do. If I say/plan a 5 mile run-like my 5 mile run today-then I run those 5 miles. Even if I hit the treadmill (or pavement) and think of all the reasons why I could stop. I haven't, that I can recall, not followed through when my plans. If I don't do it then I am more likely to not do it tomorrow and then the next day and then the next and so on. Pretty soon I'm back to where I started.  I told myself- eating that donut (at this moment) might give me some sort of unconscious permission to eat another donut tomorrow.
Does this mean I wont ever have a donut again? Probably not, but I still have a lot of work to do before it is "safe" to eat it. I need to be sure I will have the will power to stop myself the next day or the next time something like that sounds good.
Jessica arrived home (after getting lost and calling me in tears) mid day and the kids were SO excited to see their momma. She wasn't even as tired as I would have expected her to be (but I think she is feeling it today!).  I made cashew honey chicken and brown rice for dinner. It was freaking awesome- the kids didn't really like it too much, but they had eaten a crap ton for lunch so I figured they would survive not pigging out on 1 dinner.
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This morning Jessica did NOT want to get up. Oh, it caught up to her big time. But she did get up and got herself together for the day.  I headed to work with a busy schedule. I had planned on working out in the middle of day (lunch break) but ended up being swamped big time and didn't even stop while eating lunch. I ate in between phone calls.  I ate my pre-work out snack (yea, I made my lunch and pre-work out snack for 3 days on Sunday) around 2:45 thinking I would make it to the gym by 3:45. Nope. Sure didn't. I got there (finally) around 4:50. I had planned 5 miles. I stepped on the treadmill and immediately wanted to stop. I had talked myself into only going for 2 miles- my heel was killing me, I was tired, I could just run tomorrow- I made it to 2.5  miles and told myself that there wasn't anyway I could stop now. My heel wasn't hurting quite as bad and, as I mentioned above, I didn't want to give myself permission to not do what I had planned. 5 miles finally arrived! I didn't have time to do my strength training so when I got home I did several sets of push ups (since today was chest). Tomorrow I will have to do my leg presses and dumbell squats. That part I am alright. I mean I have to have some flexability, right?!

Dinner was 4 egg whites and 1 whole egg, red pepper, spinach, and onion omelet with turkey bacon. Simple and delicious.