Saturday, April 20, 2013

Day 19. Year 3.

I've been thinking a lot today about some beautiful comments and notes I've been receiving from you... First off, thank you. xoxo  Second, I tend to re-read my posts from the night before the next morning... just to see if I was actually awake and coherent when I was writing. :) Sometimes when I re-read my post, I think, ugg... that was absolutely terrible. Other times I think, wow, I am the wittiest person I know. :)  Anyway... as I was re-reading my post from last night... and reading some of your touching comments... I started thinking about things a little more... And on my facebook feed I saw a link posted from Dove's new ad campaign... have you seen the clip? It's called, 'Real Beauty Sketches' and it features a sketch artist drawing 2 portraits of the same woman, one as the woman describes her own features, and the other as someone else describes her. Then the woman gets to look at the 2 sketches side by side and she sees how she sees (wow that's a tongue twister!) herself and how others view her. I've read a few articles written that slam the campaign for still not using 'real women' ... But whether you agree with how Dove peddles their ad campaign or not, the idea behind it is interesting.  I think what it boils down to, is that everyone can be amazing. And no one really sees themselves as others see them. I think most people feel inadequate and feel like they don't measure up to whatever outrageous standard they hold themselves to. And as I was describing that 'perfect mom' scenario in my post last night... I took bits and pieces of her from real women I know who never cease to amaze ME. So she's out there, that 'perfect mom', because she's you and she's me, and she's that lady in the store that has one screaming toddler sitting in her cart grabbing for the candy and the infant asleep peacefully in the moby wrap on the mom's chest, and she's the mom who stays up until 2:30 in the morning baking that perfect cake for their child's birthday, and so on and so on. We all work our butts off. We all have moments of amazing. And we all have 'oh shit I suck at this' moments too. But if I can learn to somehow balance the amazing with the oh shit, then, that's not too bad. I'm just your average mom. And that's good enough for me and for my kids. :)  Any who... thanks to everyone who sent me messages. Sometimes we all just need to hear that we did a good job.

You did a good job today. :) 

Well... now... moving on to today... First let me check off a few things on Vick's Did-It-List. Guess what? There were no more cherry granola bars today. I took a deep breath and offered her the choice between a strawberry granola bar and an apple cinnamon granola bar. She chose the strawberry. A victory at 8:30 this morning. Pretty good way to start off my Friday!
Let's see... what else did she do? Remember how I told you today was our 'doctor date'... Vicki likes to go out for lunch after a doctor's appointment. And lately she's been wanting Ruby Tuesdays after each appointment. Some days we do it and go to Ruby Tuesdays... and other times we try for a different restaurant. But usually we'll cycle through the ones she really likes... Applebees, Ruby Tuesdays, Chili's etc... Today we decided to try something 'different'. Tropical Smoothie Cafe. Yumm-o! I think I've said this before, she's the only one of our kids who really knows how to eat real food. :) She's got quite the mature palate... she loves exotic things... like olives and hummus and those red onions and cold lima looking beans in salad bars... :)  I call these exotic because it's not pizza and chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. She likes those too... don't get me wrong... she LOVES mac and cheese... Anyway... We got out of the van at the Tropical Smoothie Cafe and she skipped inside once she saw the smoovies (as she so adorably calls them). (As an aside... I know I should correct some of the substitutions she uses for letters... but let's face it, sometimes what they said instead is so darn cute... it's hard to make them say it right.)  I love places that have pictures of food on their menus. Not only is it appealing to me when I go to order.... we all like to see what we're gonna eat... But for Vicki, it's especially nice since she is such a visual person. We asked her what she wanted and gave her the choices of chicken, turkey and whatever else they had. Chicken. I want it. Chicken. Then we pointed to the menu and asked her if she wanted a wrap or a flatbread sandwich. She immediately said wrap... then looked again, back and forth, and changed her mind. Flatbread. Flatbread. Chicken. Flatbread. It was great seeing her really think about it and choose what she really wanted. Not what she was used to. Or not just the first choice. But her choice. :)  Chicken pesto flatbread sandwich and strawberry yogurt smoovie. Victory.

Oh, and the last thing I wanted to check off of Vicki's Did-It-List today... She said yuck. That seems like an odd thing to be excited about. But I am. I don't know that she's ever said 'yuck' before. And she said it when she was eating some pineapple and mango tonight for dessert. I guess there was a hard piece of the pineapple core or a little brown spot or something on a piece of the pineapple. And she didn't eat it. She said yuck and she left it in her bowl. That's a pretty big deal for Vicki. And a very appropriate thing to do. You see, sometimes I don't know if she understands that she can leave food on her plate. She doesn't have to eat everything. (Well, heck, I don't understand that ;) either.) Anyway... I often wonder if she understands what it means to be full. Or to taste something and decide you don't like it or want it. I think it was this past fall... we were having issues with school lunch peas. Vicki just had to get them. But we didn't think she actually liked them... she was doing a lot of really strange things as she was trying to force herself to eat them... It took a few months before she was able to move through the line and not choose the peas. It was ok to not like them and not eat them.

Well... I wanted to talk tonight about Vicki's doctor visit today... But I guess I had a few other things on my mind... and I don't want to think about all the things associated with her doctor visit right now. I'll write about that tomorrow... hopefully. Right now I'm going to go watch a movie with my amazing husband and partake in a glass of wine. Maybe I put the wrong kinds of pressure on myself.. if my to-do-list had 'enjoy a hour with my husband and drink a glass of wine' maybe it would force me to make the time to do that. I think I will. That will be amazing. ;) 

xoxo

No comments:

Post a Comment