Tag: disney music

Get Your Warm Fuzzies When You Can

Last night was one of those idyll moments. All the kids were happy. I made supper and everyone ate their food. (Ok, one kid snuck his carrots into the trash can, but he ate everything else on his plate!) We had devotions and, for the most part, everyone sat and listened. Supper was a bit late, so we only had an hour before bedtime and the kids decided they wanted to listen to the Pandora Radio Disney station. So, we had the Disney music blasting. One kid was standing on the coffee table doing a great lip-syncing job, three girls were choreographing their best dances on the other side of the living room, the three youngest were playing some complex game that involved ninja moves and pushing each other around the dining room in a plastic wagon. I was sitting on the couch with my ten and twelve year old boys on either side of me. My husband was sitting on the other couch. I wanted to be sitting next to him, but my boys had voluntarily sat down next to me and it was kind of like one of those Wildlife Adventures, where you stand real still and try not to spook the wildlife. While my twelve year old is still willing to give me brief side-hugs, the ten year old has decided that all physical contact is “gross” and he will run away if you approach him with arms out-stretched. So, I was sitting real still, just enjoying the fact that he was leaning against me. The teenagers fled the scene and were hiding out in their room, but, hey, who needs teenagers? 

 

I was sitting there thinking, this is so wonderful, all of us just hanging out, the kids all happy. And then, I kid you not, the song from Lion King, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” came on. And I got all teary-eyed. My husband raised his eyebrow, his expression saying, “What on earth is wrong with you?” I decided it was too complex an emotion to try and explain to him from one couch to the other while loud music was playing, so I just gave a watery smile. 

 

Ahhh, the Warm Fuzzies. So nice. 

 

A couple hours later, ten o’clock at night, to be precise, when my daughter ran into my room to tell me that the toilet upstairs had flooded and water was now coming down through the floor and into my downstairs hallway….I was not feeling so warm…Or fuzzy. Also throw in the fact that my husband had left after putting kids to bed to go help a friend with a remodeling project, and I was the only adult on the premises…and then when I texted him about the situation and his only response was “Plunge the toilet”, yeah, all the warm fuzzies were gone.

 

This morning, I sat and read my Bible while I cooked oatmeal. All the kids were still asleep. So nice. Just having a little quiet time in the early morning. Warm. Fuzzy. Then I went to get the bowls down from the cupboard and set them out. Hmm. What’s this? Apparently, whatever child had emptied the dishwasher last, had chosen to do so with really dirty hands. Every single bowl had dirty handprints on them. What on earth. Warm fuzzies gone. 

 

I dropped off my middle schoolers at their school and proudly watched them walk down the sidewalk. My eccentric dresser was looking especially eccentrically elegant. I smiled fondly. Instead of driving off, I had to sit where I was because the car in front of me, a tiny, new-looking, cute little car that had “Cooper” written across the back, was not moving. Instead of just ejecting her passenger, the mom was actually exiting her car so she could go open the cute little trunk of her car and remove her child’s band instrument. The mom was wearing this really cute sweater and snug jeans, her hair was done, and you could tell, even through the pre-dawn light, that she had on all her makeup. Then she hopped back into her cute little car and drove off. I was suddenly very aware that I was wearing my slippers, I hadn’t bothered to even put my hair up in a messy bun, I was wearing my three year old cheap Walmart sweater (cause it’s warm, and cozy) and I was driving a humongous 15-passenger van that will never be called cute. Warm fuzzies gone. 

 

So, I’m sure there is something profound in these observations. Not sure what though. 🙂 Warm fuzzies are great. I love them. They also don’t seem to last long. I guess, if I was needing warm fuzzies to get me through life, I’d be in a pretty bad place. But, if you are just letting those warm fuzzies be kind of like the occasional decadent dessert, it’s not a bad thing. Enjoy them when they come, savor them, and just accept that shortly afterward, you might be plunging a toilet. 

 

Fat Fridays: Week 7 Crying Babies, Stress, No Autopilot Eating

Today my kids had an unexpected day off from school. We decided that the best thing to do on a wonderfully warm February day with nothing scheduled, was to go visit Grandma and Grandpa, about an hour away. I took the six youngest with me and we had a wonderful day playing outside, helping Grandpa with projects, doing crafts with Grandma, just relaxing. Finally, the kids started getting tired and fussy. I checked the time, almost 7 pm. Time to load everyone up and head home. My plan was to leave at seven and that would get us home at bedtime so the kids could just go straight to bed. It was dark and I was driving on poorly lit, country roads. I hate night driving. I can see, but I feel tense the entire time, sitting up straight in my seat, gripping the steering wheel. I put on a Disney Music Station and had it blasting in the car, trying to drown out any whining and fussing and also make it clear to the kids that we were going to sit and listen to music instead of trying to talk to mom or get into fights with siblings or start a loud obnoxious game. I turned down the volume just long enough to remind the kids that Mom didn’t like driving at night and she needed to concentrate on driving and please don’t try to talk to mom.

Well, the two year old was sitting in his car seat right behind my seat. He got into the car crying and then proceeded to cry for the entire trip. All seventy-five minutes of it. I asked my older kids to try and figure out what he wanted/needed. All they were able to establish was what he didn’t want. He didn’t want a bottle of juice. He didn’t want a water bottle. He didn’t want his toy fire truck. He didn’t want his brother’s pillow. And he didn’t want anyone to talk to him. In desperation I finally bent my arm behind my chair and offered him my hand to hold. He held my hand for a couple minutes, taming his crying down to a whimper, and then he would suddenly push my hand away and start kicking at my seat and start up crying even more. Meanwhile, I am trying to drive carefully at the speed limit, straining to see the road in the dark, trying to not get blinded by the headlights of oncoming cars. Music is blasting and the other kids are singing along gustily. And the baby keeps crying. I put my hand back again and he holds it for a couple minutes and then pushes it away. We then proceeded to repeat this process for thirty minutes. To say that I was stressed would be a bit of an understatement.

As we were getting closer to home I started thinking about what I was going to do when I got home. The first step would of course be to hand the crying baby to my husband. Tag, you’re it. And then I thought. Toast. Some nice hot toast with melted butter and maybe a bit of jam. That sounds really good. That sounds really soothing. That sounds heavenly. And then I stopped. I realized what I was doing. I was majorly stressed and so I was now fantasizing about what yummy food would help me feel better. This was not good. I wasn’t hungry. It was past supper time, heading towards bedtime, I didn’t need any food. Really, a much better way to handle this stress would be to get home and immediately step on my elliptical machine and walk off the stress instead. Of course, I am a mom of many children and it was coming up on bedtime. Fitting in a workout right away was not going to happen. So what could I do?

We finally got home whereupon the baby instantly stopped crying. Of course. I handed him over to my husband and went about the business of emptying the car and getting everyone headed off to bed. Then my little girls wanted me to sit with them while they went to sleep, they were afraid of the dark. Then after they finally went to sleep the nine year old needed a bit of one-on-one time and then finally everyone was where they were supposed to be and I could finally check out. It was almost 10 pm. Too late to make toast. And I thought about what had just happened. I had been stressed and reacted in my normal, habitual way: think of what food will help me feel better, make plans to eat it as soon as possible. And then I had stepped back from the habitual thought process and recognized what I was doing. Instead of it being a non-thought-out process, it became something that I was thinking about and analyzing. And when I recognized what I was doing, I was able to put off the food until I finally didn’t want it anymore. Because really, my old me would have told my kids to go to bed, made toast, quickly ate it, and then run upstairs to sit with the girls.

This is my takeaway. I need to continue to make Thinking about Why I am Eating, a priority. When I realize that I am eating for reasons other than hunger, I am able to take steps to stop. If I go about in a haze and just eat on autopilot I’m never going to get anywhere. So, that’s my goal for this week, no autopilot eating. Think about what I’m doing. And then hope I can make good decisions.

P.S. Clean Jeans Test this morning told me that my jeans are definitely getting a bit looser!